


Bend, Break, Breathe, and Shatter

by embulalia



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: A plot device OC, Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Domesticity, Extended flashback scene playing out in parallel to the current events, M/M, Making Out, Murder, Mutilation, Post-Canon, Pretentiousness, flippant use of flower symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-05 07:40:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14039418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embulalia/pseuds/embulalia
Summary: A rush of roaring water marks the end of a normal life. In its stead is something fragile and unfamiliar.An exploration of Hannibal and Will's relationship as they adjust to it and to each other, with a focus on years of stubbornly maintained composure finally starting to crumble.





	1. Chapter 1

The last clear moment is coloured by exhaustion, pain, and the smell pressed into his nose. The sharp, metallic stench of blood, mostly. But it isn’t alone, as it paints thinly over the smell of Hannibal. He remembers inhaling it, pressing his nose into Hannibal’s shoulder as the adrenaline faded, as hypovolemic shock settled into his bones. Then he remembers the sensation of falling, but only for a second. And then the intolerably loud roar of water, covered over by silence before he could fully register the noise. Heaviness, cold pressing in from every direction, filling his nose and mouth and chest. He couldn’t breathe, but that didn’t seem to matter. He was tired, and the pressure all around him was telling him that it was okay to go to sleep. So he did. 

Waking up was unexpected. Will’s throat aches from his hacking coughs, punctuating shallow and desperate breaths. He rolls onto his side to clear his airway. Pain cascades through him. Everything hurts, every part of his battered body. But the more he coughs, the more he feels a particularly intense pain in his face. His vision is blurry from tears and the absence of his glasses. Full clarity isn’t required to see the dark red spackling the ground beneath him. 

A knife flashes in the edge of his peripheral vision. Obviously a memory, but he is unsteady enough to flinch from it anyway. He shakily wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. That hurts a lot, and it leaves a bright streak of blood across his skin. He swallows hard. The taste of copper is overwhelming.

He squints at the ground, studying not the blood but what lies beneath it. Rocks. Wet rocks. A beach, probably. His whole body is wet. Seawater, then. Not all blood. 

His memory of what had happened is slowly returning to him. Dolarhyde. Adrenaline, the bite of knives into flesh. Sharp, brilliant bursts of pain. An impossible rush of thrill, only exacerbated by the sight of Hannibal fighting alongside him, helping him tear a man to pieces under the brilliant blue moon— 

Hannibal. 

Will blinks hard and looks around. He’s exhausted, but his heart still finds a pulse of adrenaline to force him into a crawl when he spots the other body. Hannibal is sprawled across the rocky shore, face down on the pebbles. Will shakily approaches and turns him over. 

The rocks have left little imprints in Hannibal’s skin, peppering his pale face with blemishes. Will touches it, smearing blood over his cheek. It’s cold. His fingers slide underneath the sharp nose, feeling for the huffs of Hannibal’s breath. Nothing.

Shit.

Will is tired. Too tired to process what that means. It is out of reflex that his hands clasp each other over Hannibal’s sternum and press down. He idly wonders where the strength to do so is coming from. 

He counts thirty compressions before leaning forward and pressing his lips to Hannibal’s. It takes all of his concentration to keep himself from coughing as he exhales. When he pulls back, there is even more blood covering Hannibal’s face. Back to pressing. 

Will’s vision is growing hazy. He can’t remember feeling this tired before in his life.  _ You should stop _ , he tells himself,  _ You should let him die _ . But he doesn’t stop. 

He starts to lean forward once again. Hannibal bursts to life beneath his hands, coughing and sputtering water. Will falls back on his haunches, watching blearily as Hannibal gasps for air. Beneath the blood, colour begins to seep back into his flesh. 

The feeling that washes over Will is something like relief. He’s tired, and the arms holding him upright have begun to quiver. Hannibal’s coughs slowly give way to shaky breaths. He looks back and forth, his eyes sweeping over their surroundings. 

An entirely different feeling drops in Will’s stomach when their gazes meet.

And then he is asleep once again.

 

~

 

A bump wakes Will up, startling him enough to pull a noise from his throat. It feels raw, like he has been screaming.

He feels movement, and stiff leather beneath him. He peels his tired eyes open and finds himself sprawled across the backseat of a car. He blinks slowly, squinting to make out the form in the driver’s seat. He sees broad shoulders and dull, blond hair. 

He lets his eyes fall closed again, sinking back into the comfortable darkness.

  
~

 

Harsh, searing pain in his face yanks him to awareness. He hisses, instinctively rearing backwards in a blind attempt to escape the attack. 

A thickly accented swear hits his ears. His head is grabbed and held tightly. “Will,” a voice says frantically, “Will, I need you to remain still. Do not move.”

Will whines deep in his throat, squinting and squirming. The light in this room is too bright, and pain has filled his eyes with tears. He recognizes the voice, but he has never heard such panic in it; the unfamiliarity makes his confused, bleary brain struggle to connect it to a face. 

“Yes, I know, it is very painful. I’m so sorry, but I do not have any way to anesthetize you. Please, just hold still for me.” Will can barely hear the latter half over his own yell when another piercing pain shoots through his cheek. He struggles against the hold, grabbing at the hand on his head.

“Will, please. I cannot fight with you right now.” Pleading does not suit this voice. He whines again, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Just go back to sleep. It will be over when you wake up.” Another sharp stab of agony. A wail cracks halfway out of Will’s mouth. “Will, I cannot stop this. I need to suture this wound. I’m sorry. But it would be so much easier for us both if you just—”

Another swear bursts into the air, but Will doesn’t notice it. He has finally beaten the grip on his head, managing to yank his face away from the pain. But that just ignites an even worse one, something so intensely wretched that it has stolen awareness from him. He slips back into the comfortable blackness, blind to the panic he leaves behind.

 

~

 

The next time he wakes up, he no longer feels like he’s trapped in thick, viscous fog. He can breathe, his vision is relatively clear, and he isn’t quite so cold. 

He’s in a bed. The palms of his hands skim across the sheets, feeling the soft cotton. Funny, he had figured Hannibal’s sheets would be silk for certain. 

That sleepy thought brings him to full awareness. He anticipated being in Hannibal’s bed, which is probably not a good sign. An emotion that he struggles to identify stirs in his chest. He chooses not to examine it.

Instead, he checks his limbs. Wiggle each toe, curl each finger, bend the elbows and knees. He watches his legs move beneath the sheets, brings his hands in front of his face. All accounted for. He exhales slowly. 

His legs are not unsteady when he stands, although he feels a wave of tiredness wash through him from the exertion. The bedroom is unfamiliar, in the sense that it doesn’t feel like it would be Hannibal’s. It’s too… normal. Off-white carpet, light green walls, white, floral drapes, a mid-priced TV on the wall across from the standard queen-sized bed. An unassuming painting of a boat by the door. 

A family photo on the dresser. Two parents and a pre-teen daughter. Will winces.

Definitely not Hannibal’s.

Will steps into the hallway slowly, trying to remain silent. He doesn’t know where he is, how he got here, or how long he has been here for. But it is neither his home nor Hannibal’s, and that is not a good omen. 

He hears movement below: the sound of metal clinking against metal. As he creeps down the stairs, the air is filled with the aroma of roasting meat. His stomach rumbles. All at once, he realizes how ravenous he is. The scent wafting through the house is glorious. 

Despite the sudden urge to find the source of the smell, he keeps his steps slow and quiet. It feels more like a formality than anything else. Even if this house is unfamiliar, there is little doubt in his mind as to who is in the kitchen, or what he is roasting. 

Hannibal’s back is to the kitchen entrance, giving Will a chance to observe him without notice. He leans against the wall silently, watching the man navigate the space with confidence. Hannibal lingers by the stove, fretting over two different pots and a frying pan. Past his legs, Will can see the stove light on. Hannibal pauses his work to lean over and peer inside it. Apparently satisfied, he straightens back up and resumes. 

How long has it been now? Where are they?

“Did you sleep well, Will?” Hannibal asks suddenly. Will doesn’t have it in him to be surprised.

“Like a log,” he replies, remaining in the entrance. The right side of his face feels stiff, and his cheek twinges when he speaks. “Where are we?”

“Chesapeake Beach.” Hannibal sets down his spoon and turns, wiping his hands on a dish towel. His features are neutral, only the dark bags beneath his eyes betraying any exhaustion. “About an hour south of Baltimore.”

A smirk twitches on Will’s lips. “Why here? Any reason besides the name?” 

“I will admit that the name is the main reason.” He smiles ever so slightly back. 

A timer goes off behind him. In a motion so smooth that Will can barely make sense of it, Hannibal plucks a thermometer off the counter, opens the oven door, and sticks the device into his roast. The aroma puffs into the kitchen with renewed intensity, making Will’s mouth water. Hannibal peers at the temperature reading then nods to himself. In another impossibly graceful move, he dons a pair of ruby red oven mitts and pulls the roast from the heat. 

Will eyes it from across the room. It looks incredible, and acknowledging that makes his stomach twist with revulsion. He isn’t repulsed by the food itself, no—just by his own yearning for it.

“Whose house is this?” Will asks, his eyes not leaving the roast as it sits cooling on the counter. 

“Ours, for the moment,” Hannibal says impassively, dipping his spoon into one of the pots and tasting it. After a pause, he adds, “No one you knew. It was the first home I could find that was relatively isolated.” 

No one he knew. It shouldn’t, but that knowledge does make the idea of the roast before him a bit more tolerable. 

“The… previous resident…?” Will prompts slowly, although he already knows exactly what happened to them.

“Is graciously providing us with dinner,” Hannibal confirms, pulling two plates down from one of the cabinets. Will falls silent. 

He watches Hannibal construct two mashed potato rounds. The care with which he corrects their shape seems unnecessary to Will; they’re both going to be wrecked as soon as a fork hits them. 

“We have been here for about twelve hours,” Hannibal explains as he prepares their meals. “I attended to both of our injuries as soon as I was able. With proper care, I believe scarring will be minimal.” 

Right. Will had let the nasty stab wound gouged into his cheek fall to the back of his mind. He gingerly touches his face, feeling a thick pad of gauze and tape beneath his fingertips. The light touch stings. His memory is hazy, but he seems to recall someone messing around with it. Pain and exhaustion keep the details blurred. 

“Scarring, eh?” he says. Hannibal nods. 

“As I said, it should be minimal with proper care. Don’t be too concerned.”

Will hadn’t thought about the aesthetic consequences of the injury yet. Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise him that they were immediate in Hannibal’s mind. 

“How did you get us here?” Will asks. He remembers being in a car, but that murky memory is a laughably small patch in the quilt. 

Hannibal doesn’t answer at first, too busy arranging green beans so that they stand upright against the slices of roast like a strange teepee. After he has gotten them to balance, he says, “I signalled a car for a ride and disposed of its driver. Carrying you from the beach to the back seat was... difficult, but once you were inside, all I had to do was drive until I found somewhere suitable.” 

The story is coming together in Will’s mind. He wonders if Hannibal remembers the first moments on the beach. 

He really should have let the man die. It would have been so easy. 

Hannibal delicately pours a thin sauce over his constructions, then wipes the rims of the plates clean. “The dining room table is just through there,” he says, nodding towards a doorway across from Will and turning to wash his hands in the kitchen sink. 

Will might have protested if they weren’t in a stranger’s home; the formality of a meal in the dining room seems excessive for just two. But the situation is too precarious to bother. Everything is excessive with Hannibal anyways.

To Will’s surprise, the dining table is devoid of fancy settings. No tablecloth, placemats, or elegantly folded napkins are in sight. He sinks into a chair gingerly. Sitting at the table of someone recently deceased doesn’t feel as wrong as it ought to. 

“I apologize for the lack of centrepiece,” Hannibal says as he bustles into the room, “I’m afraid I was unable to prepare our meal to the extent I would have preferred.” He sets an immaculately presented plate of food in front of Will.

“Seems like you’ve done plenty of preparation,” he remarks. 

“Perhaps,” Hannibal says, a slight furrow appearing between his brows. Like almost all of his facial expressions, it would be unnoticeable to anyone unused to looking for it. 

Will watches him closely as he takes a seat across the table. While his movements in the kitchen were the picture of grace, he seems tenser now. It makes sense, really: he was shot in the stomach not even a day ago. How he managed to carry out all the tasks needed to get them this far in his nearly-drowned, badly-injured state is beyond Will. 

Once Hannibal has settled himself, an expectant, scrutinizing gaze falls on Will. He sets his jaw. A rush of disgust floods his stomach. He can’t do this. He really can’t.

And yet...

The memory of tearing into Dolarhyde flashes through his mind. He remembers the feeling of ripping through flesh. Of hot blood splattering across his face. Of the incredible, glorious explosion of joy and power.

He’s hungry. Really hungry. And it smells so genuinely wonderful. 

Will shuts his eyes as he savours that first bite. It tastes as exquisite as it smelled, as he knew that it would. He should be repulsed. He should be struggling to keep it in his mouth. But by the work of his hunger and whatever fucked up part of his mind has lead him to this moment, it is the most delicious thing he has ever eaten.

When he opens his eyes, the furrow has smoothed out of Hannibal’s brow. Will can feel the satisfaction radiating off of him in thick waves, so intense that it may as well be his own. The meat goes down his throat easily, with not even a token sign of mortification. Hannibal’s posture changes when he sees Will swallow, subtly enough that anyone else would not have noticed. He had sagged ever so slightly, some sort of tension draining out of him. 

Will decides not to think too hard about what it means.

They enjoy their meal in silence, eyes meeting every few bites to study each other. Will senses no threat in Hannibal’s gaze, nor any clinical observation. It is shockingly soft, almost vulnerable in conjunction with the dark circles beneath his eyes. But Will knows better than to take it at face value. It is merely a result of his hedonistic contentment. Whatever pleasure Hannibal gets out of watching people eat his food, he is basking in it right now. 

“It is a classic oven roast with a wild mushroom and garlic sauce, served over mashed potatoes and dry-fried green beans,” Hannibal explains suddenly. Will pauses. They’re both nearly finished. It seems a bit late to be giving a run down. 

“Wild mushroom?” he asks, instead of any more worthwhile question.

“Well, not as wild as I would like. I was forced to make do with what was already in the fridge,” he admits. 

It is no matter whether the mushrooms were wild or domesticated; the sauce is one of the nicest Will has ever had. He scrapes his fork along his plate to gather some and slowly licks it off the tines. 

He doesn’t see Hannibal move, so Will is caught off guard when his chin is snatched between strong fingers and his head forced up. He fights the grip instinctively, hissing as his cheek ignites with pain. But his movements cease when full lips press against his own. 

Hannibal tastes like the meal they just shared and something else that Will can’t place. He bites Will’s lip hard, a low sound rumbling from his chest. Will gasps softly, more from surprise than pain. 

He should push the man off. But in the same way that the meal tasted delicious, the kiss feels incredible. He digs his grubby nails into Hannibal’s shoulders and lets himself enjoy the sensation of the foreign tongue in his mouth, tasting dinner on his lips and his breath. 

Hannibal pulls away but keeps his face close to Will’s, curling his fingers tightly in his hair. “I have been waiting for this,” he says, his voice gruff and quiet. 

Will doesn’t know what to say. His eyes are blown wide with shock. “You taste so good,” he whispers, because nothing else will reach his lips. 

Hannibal smiles his version of a smile, something small and thin and barely genuine. Will doesn’t want to see it. It stirs up more unidentifiable emotions that he is unwilling to analyze. 

He surges to his feet and reignites their kiss. Hannibal’s hand twists in his curls, holding Will flush against himself with their lips crushed together. Even though Will initiated it, he finds himself made the receiver immediately. Hannibal’s forceful tongue presses against Will’s between the hard, quick bites. 

A whine slips from somewhere deep in Will’s chest when Hannibal prods the interior of his facial injury, feeling the sutures he laid into the soft wall of Will’s cheek with the tip of his tongue. A small burst of copper fills Will’s mouth, overriding the flavour of their meal. 

It tastes just as good.

“Fuck, Hannibal,” Will whispers when they part for air. His lip is already beginning to swell. 

“Language,” Hannibal sighs back, his eyes fluttering shut as he enjoys the metallic taste of Will’s blood. He pulls Will’s hair, tugging his head back and exposing the curve of his neck. The clipped gasp it causes is just as delicious. 

The salt of sweat on Will’s flesh is delectable as well. Hannibal runs his tongue along the pale throat, feeling the quiver of Will’s adam’s apple as he breathes quickly. He gasps again when Hannibal bites down. Sharp teeth come just shy of breaking the skin. 

Will’s breath hitches when he feels a hand press down on his crotch. He shudders, reaching behind himself for purchase against the table. Hannibal gladly pushes him over, bending Will’s spine backward without removing his mouth from Will’s neck. He lightly squeezes Will’s cock through his pants, just enough to get another gasp out of him. 

“Hannibal, please,” Will breathes, gasping again when Hannibal sinks his sharp teeth into his collarbone. 

Hannibal twists the hand in Will’s hair, giving his curls a yank. “You are exquisite…” he says, forcing Will further into the edge of the table. He slides his other hand up from between Will’s legs and under the hem of his shirt. Steady, confident fingers glide over the soft flesh of his navel, pressing and feeling. When they find the thick band of scar tissue cutting across his abdomen, Will startles, instinctively flinching backwards. The table digs into his back. His arm begins to quiver from the strain of holding his body upright in the increasingly awkward position.

“F-Fuck,” Will mutters as Hannibal digs his fingers into the scar. If they don’t reconfigure their position, he’s going to collapse backwards onto the tabletop. 

“Does that hurt?” Hannibal whispers into the skin of his neck. The question doesn’t seem to carry much concern. Will would be foolish to expect his pain to stop Hannibal’s attentions. 

“No…” he says, gritting his teeth. The set of his jaw aggravates the gash in his cheek. “No, it just feels… wrong…” He has had years to grow accustomed to the sensation of scar tissue where healthy skin used to be, but the adjustment never happened. He prefers not to look at it.

“It is not uncommon to develop a sense of detachment from areas of the body that have been… ah, beset by significant amounts of scarring,” Hannibal says, his words honeyed as if they were praise. He gives another harsh bite to the curve of Will’s neck, then presses a kiss over it. “Some people feel that these areas have become alien.”

Will’s breath catches at the feeling of the thick lips on his throat. “ ‘Beset?’ are you a jeweller now?” He digs his nails into Hannibal’s shoulders harder, hoping that it will bruise. “You say that like it’s a decoration or something.”

“Is it not?” 

The glibness of the remark makes Will want to knee Hannibal in the balls. It would serve him right, frankly. But Hannibal applies more pressure to the old wound, and Will’s stomach flutters beneath deft, surgeon’s fingers. He nearly chokes on his breath when Hannibal delivers another sharp bite to his neck. 

It surprises them both when Will’s arms finally give out. His back hits the table, and Hannibal’s hand is caught between the wood and Will’s skull. Will finds himself pinned beneath the other man’s broad chest. 

“I didn’t think I would be the person whose body you put on the table,” Will says when the surprise passes. 

Hannibal lets out another low, rumbling sound that conjures a snarling dog in Will’s mind. He catches Will’s bruised lips in another forceful kiss, stealing his breath. When he pulls back, they are both red faced. “You are mine,” he growls. 

It is an oddly reactionary manoeuvre, the sort of thing Will wouldn’t expect from Hannibal. He had always been so fond of macabre humour, and never seemed one to act so brashly. 

“Are you going to eat me, Hannibal?” Will looks directly into Hannibal’s eyes as he sneers his accusation. 

“If I wish to, then I will without hesitation,” Hannibal spits. Something about the assertion perplexes Will. It sounds almost... forced. 

He has no time to say anything else before Hannibal slams their mouths together again. He doesn’t want to enjoy these aggressive, lustful kisses, but by god does he. He runs a hand through Hannibal’s hair, ruffling it because he knows it will annoy him. 

They part breathless, hands tangled in each other’s hair. “When I do,” Hannibal says, his voice thinned and quiet, “You will be the most delectable meal that I have ever created.”

Will licks his lips and pulls Hannibal’s face back towards his own. His hope was to take the lead, but he manages to get only one nip in before Hannibal regains the upper hand. The small bite is returned with double the force, nearly drawing blood. Will hisses, and Hannibal exhales heavily through his nose, relishing the taste of him.

Will twists his head to break off the kiss, earning himself a sharp yank to his hair. He swears, but allows Hannibal to pull him back into place, fixing him with a glare. It is met with a hazy gaze of immense adoration. The anger is startled out of him, his eyes widening. He swallows hard.

“You… are exquisite…” Hannibal repeats breathily. He presses his lips back against Will’s neck, finally releasing his hair to unbutton his rumpled shirt. Will lets him, shifting his hands to Hannibal’s shoulders. Once the fabric has been moved aside, Hannibal brings his possessive kisses over Will’s collarbone and down his chest. His breath stutters at the feeling of lips and teeth against his sweaty, bruised skin. 

Hannibal pauses over his heart, feeling the fluttering beats beneath him. He inhales deeply, filling his nose with Will’s scent.

“Tolerating the aftershave?” Will says without thinking. He has no idea where that came from. Teasing Hannibal when his teeth are that close to Will’s heart is possibly one of the stupidest things he has ever done. It would have been a better jab when the attentions were on his neck anyway. 

Hannibal brings one hand back to Will’s face, tracing his palm along his jaw, over his cheek, up into his hairline. He cards it gently through sweaty curls. Then, he grabs tight and yanks harshly. Will grunts.

“You will be using a different one from now on. I will find you something far more suitable,” he promises. 

Before Will can think too hard about the implications of that promise, his thoughts are stolen by a tongue flicking over his nipple. The sharp nip that follows makes him squeak. A grin cracks over Hannibal’s face, and he nips it again. Will considers shoving his head away, but his hands stay put, grasping his broad shoulders tightly. 

Hannibal repeats his actions on the other side of Will’s chest, leaving both his nipples pert and sensitive. Will’s chest rises and falls quickly beneath Hannibal’s mouth as he trails firm kisses and sharp bites down his abdomen. 

Will doesn’t realize what Hannibal’s intentions are until he feels wet lips press into his scar. He lifts his head to verify that this is actually happening, disbelief on his face. 

Hannibal keeps his grip on Will’s hair lenient, letting him watch as he lavishes kisses over the band of damaged flesh. Will swallows hard, lowering himself back down against the table. It feels so bizarre—not exactly uncomfortable so much as somewhat unsettling.

“I… H-Hannibal, what are you doing…?” he asks.

Hannibal pauses and lifts his head just enough to answer. “You have suffered so beautifully for me… for us…” he says quietly. Will can feel his lips tickling over his stomach as he speaks. A beat of silence lingers in the air before Hannibal continues his thought. “It would be a shame to not appreciate something beautiful.” 

Will scoffs. That scar is a lot of things, but beautiful is not one of them. Ghastly, perhaps. Not beautiful. 

“Will,” Hannibal scolds. He lifts his head a little higher and tugs Will’s hair to get him to do the same, intending to make eye contact. Will avoids it. “I know you are not vain, so I did not expect a normal sense of detachment to yield issues with self image."

“Is now really the time to have a fucking therapy session?” Will asks in disbelief, a sharp laugh bubbling from his throat. 

“There is always time for therapy,” Hannibal says, straightening his back. “What is it about your scar that gives you such feelings of—”

His words cut off when Will grabs him by the front of his shirt and pulls him close, lifting his leg and pressing his thigh into Hannibal’s crotch. Hannibal’s breath quivers. Will closes the distance between their faces and whispers directly into his ear, “Can we just get to the point already?” 

 

~

 

Hannibal had given Will the job of cleaning. It was obvious that doing so was not his preference; the instructions for how to be as thorough and effective as possible were repeated until Will cut him off. 

“If you’re so worried about how good of a job I’ll do, why don’t you just do it?” he had snapped.

“I have some matters to attend to,” he replied dodgily. And with a foreboding remark about how Will’s failure to perform this task adequately would lead to their deaths, he had disappeared upstairs somewhere.

Will’s knees are sore from crawling on the tile. His pants are soaked with soapy water, and even with a pair of large rubber gloves protecting his arms, his shirt is wet as well. The smell of cleaners is potent; Will finds himself missing the delicious aromas from dinner.

The countertops have been disinfected and the table washed until its finish was stripped. Dishes and cutlery sit soaking in a sink filled with pure bleach. He had been forced to fashion a makeshift mask out of a dish towel to keep the strong fumes from scorching his sinuses, and he has to pause and straighten up every few minutes in order to clear tears from his eyes and stretch out his back. The process is wretched, and Will has to wonder how Hannibal forces himself through it. 

It is during one of his breaks that Hannibal finally returns to the kitchen. He has borrowed a pair of slippers from the previous homeowners to keep his socks off the tile. Will watches him scrutinize his work with an incredibly neutral expression. 

“Well?” he asks as Hannibal peers down at the glossy countertops. 

“How much do you have left to do?”

Will grimaces. “Just the rest of the floor. My back is killing me.” He stretches stiffly. “Is there even a point to this? It’s not like we did anything over here.”

Hannibal looks down at him over his nose, his brown eyes blank. “We must be careful to control the amount of evidence we leave at scenes like this. Cutting corners is not an option.” He circles the counter, his eyes flicking between its surface and Will’s irritated face. “Laziness could lead to our capture, and our capture to our deaths.”

Will’s mouth twitches. He flicks water and cleaner from his gloves, splattering it across the wooden cabinets. Hannibal frowns. “If it’s so important, why leave me to do it instead of just doing it yourself?” 

“It is important that the job be done well,” Hannibal says, pulling a dish towel from the oven handle. “It is also important that you know how to do it well yourself, Will.” 

“Are you going to help me at least?” he asks, eyeing the towel. 

“I thought I would attend to the small mess you just made.” He walks past Will and delicately wipes the splattered water from the cabinets. 

“And the rest of it?”

“As I said. It is important that you know how to do it well yourself.” Hannibal folds the towel and offers it out to Will. He huffs and snatches it roughly. 

“What were you doing anyway?” he asks as he tosses the towel aside and pulls his scrub brush out of the bucket. 

“Attending to our travel affairs.”

Will’s entire body complains as he returns to scrubbing the floor. “Travel.”

“Of course. We cannot stay here,” Hannibal says, gesturing to the kitchen around them. He steps back to give Will space, but lingers nearby, watching him work with fascination. 

“How are we supposed to go anywhere? You’re a fugitive. And a pretty high profile one.” Will imagines Hannibal trying to sneak them through the Baltimore airport and snorts. They wouldn’t make it into security. 

Hannibal’s lips pull into one of his tiny grins. When Will leans forward to put some weight into his scrubs, he sticks his ass out. A lovely view. 

“Oh, Will. You underestimate how many problems can be solved with an adequate amount of money,” he says fondly. 

Will pauses without straightening, pursing his lips. “Is it necessary to showboat to me, Dr Lecter?” he asks. Hannibal chuckles softly.

“It is simply a statement of fact, dear Will.”

“Uh huh.” Will returns to scrubbing. “Where are we going then?”

“I have acquired us passage to France. We will go to a property of mine in the south, just outside of Nice,” Hannibal explains, admiring Will from behind as he works. Will doesn’t notice. 

“France,” Will repeats, pausing to stretch again. He settles back on his haunches and twists to look up at Hannibal. “I thought you’d want to take us to Florence.”

Hannibal furrows his brow. “Yes. Were I able to arrange it, I would have preferred to.” His tone sounds far more troubled than Will is used to hearing from him. He frowns as well. 

“Why couldn’t you?”

“I’m afraid that I still have too high of a profile in Florence, as a result of my last stay there. It would be irresponsible to return.” Hannibal lets out a very small sigh, his hands fidgeting at his sides. 

Will looks away from him and back down at the tile. “Nice then,” he muses. He tries to picture himself living in France, cooped up in some fancy manor decorated to Hannibal’s eclectic tastes. It is such a bizarre image. “I speak a bit of French,” he says, “So Nice is better for me anyways.”

“That was my assumption.” 

Will passes the scrub brush back and forth between his hands. He can’t imagine how they’re going to travel discretely; even in stolen, non-bloodied clothes, they both look quite distinct. Especially Hannibal, who cuts an impressive figure no matter what he wears. Or doesn’t wear. But Hannibal has done this before, running off to Europe despite fugitive status. He knows how to pull it off. 

“What did you do with the… uh, previous homeowners?” Will asks. He had let them slip out of mind; thinking about the clothes stolen from them reminded him of that detail. 

“They supplied us with dinner,” Hannibal reminds him. Will tightens his grip on the brush. “And they shall supply us with one other thing of value when we leave.”

“What’s that?” Will asks. He should dread the answer, but all he feels is a twinge of unease. 

Hannibal steps closer to Will and rests a hand on his head, running his fingers through his curls. His voice is gentle as he says, “A goodbye.”

 

~

 

They leave the house at half past five in the evening, carrying a stolen suitcase filled with stolen clothing. None of it fits quite right (a little too big for Will, a little too small for Hannibal), but it will get them through the day or two of travel ahead of them. 

The previous homeowners had been a couple in their mid thirties, married with one kid. A daughter. She wasn’t at home when Hannibal broke in; they only knew about her from the pictures on the walls. He mentioned it when they were standing over the bodies in the basement together. Will was able to breathe much more easily after hearing it.

It had been a quick kill, quicker than Hannibal preferred to carry out. He explained it with the same calm confidence that he used to explain dinner—although, in a sense, he was still explaining dinner. 

He had slipped in through the back door and caught the wife as she made tea in the kitchen. Strangulation. He had tried to keep it as quiet as possible, but she kicked the wall. Luckily, the husband was slow about coming to check on the sound. He walked in after she was already dead. The altercation between him and Hannibal was quick and relatively effortless, although he did manage to get in a few blows. Hannibal seemed rather sour about it; had he not been recently injured, it would have been an even quicker fight. Will was just amazed that Hannibal pulled it off at all.

The meat from dinner had been taken from the wife. Her left leg was severed above the knee. Will remembered how good it had tasted as he stared down at the injury. It made him feel a little ill. 

Attending to the bodies was a tiring task. They pulled out both sets of fingernails; Hannibal had gotten quite scratched up, and there was likely to be tissues stuck under them. Together, they lugged the bodies upstairs, laying them out on the bed. While Will fretted over the dead couple until they looked comfortably positioned, Hannibal took the bloody nails out to bury. He returned with an armful of flowers from the garden. 

He had done it before, turning his victims into bouquets. Will might have pointed that out, but Hannibal beat him to it. It was a familiar concept, but this would be different. 

That difference was Will. He was given the blade and loosely directed on how to split open the abdominal cavities. Blood and viscera coated his arms from gloved fingertip to elbow as he rearranged organs, creating large, open holes in both corpses. From there, he stood back and watched Hannibal delicately craft his floral arrangements. Geraniums in soft pink and white, begonias in red and yellow, and hyacinths in bright pink, circling each of their hearts. Pale, elegant hydrangeas, delicate forget-me-nots, and rich, purple anemones filling every inch of space. 

“Are those hydrangeas?” Will had asked in a reedy voice. 

“Yes, they are,” Hannibal said, adjusting the bushel of small, white blooms. “I am impressed that you recognized them. I didn’t know that you were familiar with flowers.”

Will shook his head. “I’m not. Those are the only ones I know.”

Hannibal smiled to himself. “I see.” He paused in his work when a strong pain passed through his stomach. To mask his discomfort, he announced, “Hydrangeas are an apologetic flower. When used in a bouquet, they tell the recipient that the giver is sorry.” 

Will should have known that Hannibal wasn’t picking his flowers at random. “Appropriate…” he muttered. 

“And begonias... they speak of impending danger. Not a common appearance in most bouquets.” He straightened his back to stretch out his torso and view his handiwork. His voice grew soft. “I find that quite fascinating, how something so unassuming and delicately beautiful can be an omen of menace.” 

Will didn’t answer. There was no need.

The image of the two bodies, split open and filled with flowers, sticks to the back of Will’s eyelids as Hannibal drives them away from the house. They keep silent, Will watching street signs and trees flick passed his window and Hannibal watching the road ahead. 

It was not Will’s first time decorating a crime scene. He has ripped apart bodies with his own hands and the hands of others, felt cold flesh give way and ooze coagulating blood as he laid out the pieces. This was not even especially brutal. Everything about this murder was on the mild side, from the relatively quick deaths to the clean and elegant presentation. Adhering shredded chunks of Randall Tier’s body to a skeleton was far more gruesome in every sense. And yet something about this is troubling him much more than other murders. 

Will shuts his eyes and rests his head against the cold glass of the window. He sees the corpses of a couple, their nailless fingers intertwined and their bodies gaping open to the world, teeming with floral life and colour. He sighs softly, his muscles relaxing. 

He has killed alongside Hannibal, and now he has mutilated alongside him as well. And together, they have engineered a morbid, beautiful farewell to his old existence. There is nowhere left to go but onward, into the foreboding unknown of a life by Hannibal’s side.

 


	2. Chapter 2

_Florence, Italy - 3 Years Prior_

_At a glance, the city seemed unchanged. And that was what Hannibal wanted: something familiar and comfortable that he could take solace in. Somewhere that he knew intimately and loved deeply, that he could live in with ease. And from a distance, it seemed to serve that purpose quite well. The bigger pieces fit together cleanly, giving off the impression of the home he had come to love so much. But once he started looking closely at the puzzle around him, he began to notice the things that were missing.  
_

_It started only days after his and Bedelia’s arrival. He was feeling rather doleful and nostalgic. His hope was to soothe himself with a sweet reminder of where he was, in the form of a delicious cioccolato fondente gelato he had enjoyed in his youth. His memories of the shop it came from were impeccable: the colourful banner over its doors, the clean and cheerful interior decor, the friendly staff, and the freshly made cones were all clear and present in his mind. The address was easy to remember as well. So, he led Bedelia there, promising something truly special to both her and himself. His disappointment was perhaps heavier than it should have been when he found the shop replaced by a cheap grocer._

_Next, it was the coffee shop he had frequented. Those memories were perfectly clear as well: stopping by after hours spent drawing in the Medici chapels, exchanging warm pleasantries with the barista, and nursing a delicious cappuccino that seemed to warm his entire being from head to toe. Also gone, and replaced by a McDonalds of all things. He had been in a particularly sour mood after that discovery._

_Sixty three infractions. He counted them all. The worst of them was the lovely deli he used to eat lunch at on Sundays. What a relief it had been to find it still standing; he felt like he was walking on air after all the disappointments. His favourite sandwich was still on the menu: a lovely number on freshly baked bread with grilled red pepper and a rich cheese. But he was brought something truly appalling: overly charred pepper, day old bread, and a cheap cheese that could barely hope to stand up to the original. Under new management, apparently. He took down the new owner’s name and went on his way, fuming quietly._

_Sixty three little betrayals of his fondest memories, each a greater thorn in his side. Florence was supposed to be a relief, a return to something pleasant after the... blow he had been dealt. And yet the city he loved so dearly delivered blow after blow as well._

_Perhaps those betrayals would have been tolerable if they were the extent of the cruelties he was enduring. However, fortune had not been so merciful. Everywhere that Hannibal went, he saw Will._

_At first it was in the occasional passersby. He would notice a fellow patron at a gallery, and for a brief, exhilarating moment, their messy curls and rumpled shirt would belong to Will. But as soon as he turned to look with more than his peripheral vision, the illusion would dissolve, and he would be left watching a stranger. It wasn’t too disruptive; just a brief moment of distress. Hannibal would simply grit his teeth and return to what he was doing._

_If it had stayed that small in scale, it may have been tolerable. But as the weeks went on, the illusions grew more frequent. He would turn away from a bespectacled, scruffy-faced patron and find himself seeing a familiar jaw in the portrait he had just been looking at. And suddenly, every piece of art was a reminder._

_The careless curl of Bacchus’s hair, as rendered by Caravaggio. The lips of Donatello’s David. The hands of Bernini’s St Lawrence. He had once been able to appreciate them unfettered, but the sight of them now seemed to settle a heavy stone in his stomach. He did his best to ignore it, for the thought of losing such a precious past time filled him with bitter anger._

_It wasn’t long before he was seeing Will everywhere. He could not leave the house without seeming to catch sight of someone or something that brought the man to mind. Hannibal was being haunted, and he could not seem to escape it._

_Eventually, it became impossible to try. He had grown weary of the strange toll it was taking on him, this attempt to avoid spectres from his past. For that’s all this was, he would tell himself; in time, the heaviness in his heart would fade, and the memory of Will would slip from his mind. He had closed that sordid chapter, and it was time to move on. To let the apparitions dance around him until they tired of their games and vanished for good._

_Three months into his life in Florence, Hannibal had begun to grow used to the stone that sat in his stomach. Its greatest nuisance was the interference with his appetite, which he dutifully ignored. Whatever nonsense was causing his discomfort would not take his greatest pleasure from him._

_Still, when he settled in the street-side seats of cafes on his way home from work, he would refrain from ordering food. Simply a measure to preserve his hunger for his own cooking, he would tell himself as he ordered only beverages._

_A cappuccino, pleasant but not as delicious as those he had enjoyed in his youth, warmed his palms as he sat beneath a cream umbrella. The weather was mild, but cool enough to warrant a jacket, and the warm porcelain against his skin filled him with a certain calm. The street beyond the cafe’s fence was slightly busy—not enough to be noisy, but enough to allow for passive people watching._

_Florence was filled with beauty; it had been decades ago, and it still was that day as he sat quietly and absorbed himself in his thoughts. Liszt’s Liebesträume filled his head. He had been plucking away at an arrangement for his harpsichord, but the climax of Seliger Tod was giving him trouble. Something about it refused to come easily, to his frustration. He tapped his finger to the rhythm of the music as he took a slow, thoughtful sip of his drink._

_His train of thought was derailed by the sound of smashing glass to his left. Bubbling apologies burst from a waitress as she bent to gather the remains of a mug. The table she had been serving reassured her with polite tones and smiles. Hannibal watched with dull eyes, noting the subtle tells of annoyance in the patrons and wondering if the waitress would notice._

_His gaze strayed past the table. At the next place over sat an elegantly-dressed blond woman in a large hat. She reminded him of Bedelia. He took another sip of his drink._

_A young family was at the next table. Tourists, by the look of their attire and large camera. The couple looked to be in their early thirties, and their daughter no more than five or six. As the waitress who had dropped the mug turned to leave, they hailed her. The father asked her to take their picture in slow, choppy Italian._

_At the next table sat Will._

_Hannibal just about coughed on his drink. He sat down the mug and dabbed at his lips with a napkin, then leaned forward subtly to get a better look passed the two tables between them._

_It was not Will, obviously. Hannibal had grown used to moments of false identification, of being so certain that this time, he had actually found him, that he had really come all the way here. But they were always fleeting. As he gave this person a proper look, he would come to see that the resemblance was not so strong. But this time… This time, that realization did not seem forthcoming._

_This man was not Will, but he could have been. The pieces were all there. Pale, smooth skin, covered by a scattering of messy stubble. Unruly brown curls fanning out over a pleasantly shaped forehead, brushing against thick brows. Lovely blue eyes behind small framed glasses, just a tad too small for his face. A slight but decidedly square jaw. A plaid shirt under a navy sweater, just a little too loose._

_Hannibal could not believe his eyes. This man was not Will, but he was so close that if Hannibal let himself squint…_

_The man who was not Will held a half eaten cannoli. His eyes were on the street, as Hannibal’s had been minutes ago. It was obvious that he was observant, and seemingly quite thoughtful as well. What Hannibal would give to see inside his thoughts._

_Hannibal licked his lips and slowly brought his cappuccino to them. He couldn’t even taste it as he took an uncharacteristically fast and large swallow, more like a drag of alcohol than a proper sip for coffee. His mind held nothing but this man who was not Will. For the first time in three months, the stone in his stomach had vanished. His heart fluttered in his chest, sending a rush of elation and energy through his limbs._

_In two more sips—or, more accurately, two ungraceful gulps—his cup was emptied. It scorched the back of his throat, but he barely registered the discomfort. The man was savouring his cannoli, taking slow and small bites. A plan quickly came together in Hannibal’s mind. He would wait for this man who was not Will to finish his snack. Hannibal would leave first, timing his exit to allow them to cross paths in the door of the cafe. With the correct posturing, a simple greeting should be sufficient to begin conversation. He would have to navigate the situation by ear, improvise based on what he could observe as they spoke._

_Frankly, it was no matter what he had to do. There was not a chance in hell that he would leave without at least learning this man’s name._

_It took the man who was not Will exactly seven minutes and twenty eight seconds to finish the cannoli. Hannibal was not specifically tracking it, but he had a rather impeccable sense of time when he was focusing—and he had not been more completely present in a single moment since driving a knife into the actual Will’s stomach months ago._

_Oh, how glorious that moment had been. So glorious that he had not been free of that wretched heaviness in his own stomach since._

_But this new chase of his was finally, finally alleviating it._

_Hannibal stood while the man who was not Will dusted powdered sugar from his fingers. A confident but slow stride brought him to the business’s interior. He paused inside to adjust the sleeves of his suit jacket and fret over his tie. From the corner of his eye, he could see his quarry stand as well._

_He called his clothing sorted as the man entered the building. And, just as Hannibal had arranged, they reached the door to the street at the same moment._

_Hannibal flashed his best smile to the man who was not Will as he held the door open for him. The man smiled back, and it sent a jolt of excitement through Hannibal’s whole body. It was Will’s lopsided smile, practically perfect to how he remembered it._

_“Thanks,” he said, and Hannibal glowed. An American. It couldn’t be any more flawless._

_“My pleasure,” he replied in his warmest voice, casually following the other outside. To his delight, the man’s eyes lingered on him, giving him an easy opening to pursue conversation. “You are not from here?”_

_“Nope, full on tourist,” the man said with a somewhat awkward chuckle, “Just kind of taking guesses at the best places to go.”_

_“Well, you certainly made an excellent choice in that cafe. It is one of my favourites,” Hannibal praised glowingly._

_The man’s smile widened, enraptured by this curious man and his friendliness. “Yeah? You’re a local then?”_

_Hannibal’s gaze flicked over the man, taking in his posture and body language to impercepitbly imitate. “So to speak. I recently returned after a rather lengthy absence.”_

_The man was relaxing more and more by the second, lured by Hannibal’s smooth tone and apparent openness. “Does that mean you’d know a good place to get dinner?” he asked, “There are so many well reviewed places that I’m not really sure where to start.”_

_Hannibal’s heart fluttered. He could not ask for this to go any more smoothly._

_“Why yes, I know of a few places,” he said, gesticulating subtly with one hand. “If it would be agreeable to you, I would gladly take you out to one of them.”_

_The man’s cheeks flushed, shifting to one of surprise. Then, his smile returned with twice the radiance. Hannibal’s own smile reached his eyes. “Are you serious? This isn’t a joke, is it?” the man asked, looking around as if expecting to see some sort of hidden camera._

_“Oh, of course not,” Hannibal laughed jubilantly, “I would be delighted to have your company for the evening.”_

_“Well… Alright, sure, what the hell. Thanks.” He stuck out a hand enthusiastically. “I’m Lee,” he said._

_The handshake was firm and familiar. Hannibal sighed ever so slightly, his heart aglow. He squeezed Lee’s hand. “Hannibal.”  
_

~

The trip to France was long and wrought with confusion. That’s not to say that it was uncomfortable; quite the opposite. Will had never been on as luxurious of a flight as the one Hannibal paid their way onto. The seats were plush and soft, the leg room was generous, and the food was genuinely edible. On top of it all, the flight attendants were extra tender towards them (whether because of the money, the scattering of injuries over both of their faces, or some combination of the two was unclear). They had to be the most pampered fugitives on earth.

No, the confusion came from Hannibal’s dour mood. Most people wouldn’t notice it; Hannibal was nothing if not good at controlling his outward appearance. His frowns were tiny—no more than brief twitches between the brows and on the lips—but they were frequent. Will noticed them all: when he first took a seat on the plane, when he attempted to adjust himself, when the flight attendant told him they were out of the champagne he ordered, when the food was brought out, and over and over during the landing procedure. It was more surprising and amusing than anything else.

The irritation continued even after they disembarked. Hannibal radiated anger as they waited at the gate for their connection in Paris. The delay seemed completely inconsequential to Will; they had made it out of the country, and it was way too soon to worry about a media frenzy getting them caught. He could have asked what the problem was, but as he thinks back on it, leaving it alone was likely the best decision.

The dashboard clock of their cab reads 21:30, reminding Will that he’ll have to adjust to military time. He had been annoyed when Hannibal insisted on riding in the front seat. But now, twenty minutes into the drive, Will is grateful for it. The rapid conversation between Hannibal and the driver outpaces his rusty French comprehension, and he’s more than happy to stare out the window in silence.

The countryside is picturesque, enough so that Will is certain he has seen these exact views on one of Jack’s office calendars. It certainly doesn’t feel like home, but it’s not unpleasant by any means. It’ll take some adjusting, he supposes.

The sight of trees is a relief. Something about the thought of living in a city with Hannibal is a bit distasteful. Will has gotten used to the privacy of a house in the middle of nowhere, and while this nowhere looks a bit different than the one he had in Wolf Trap, it’s still a touch of familiarity. He smiles a little. Hard to believe that Hannibal actually took his preferences into account for this.

Of course, he’s not blind to the practical benefits of an isolated home. They’re fugitives. And while Will has no doubt that Hannibal will be spending as much time as possible living it up in the city, they need a place to disappear to.

A place where no one will hear them work.

His smile disappears, and a shudder runs through Will’s body. The smell of blood and flowers is still fresh in his memory. Very fresh. He can still see it actually, can still see flesh giving way beneath his blade as he carves a gash from navel to sternum, can still hear ribs cracking in his hands as he makes space for whatever Hannibal had planned. It smells like metal and death and victory, tastes like a delicious roast lavishly prepared just for him. It feels like a firm kiss against his neck, followed up by a sharp, forceful bite.

His breath catches, and he startles himself out of the reverie. His heart is pounding. The conversation up front hasn’t ceased, to his relief. He catches the occasional word, “visage” and “pansement” and “blessé”. A touch of self consciousness has him turn his face back into the window. It’s closer to 22:00 now. Maybe they’re close.

Will doesn’t want to think about what this all means just yet. He’d rather think about what kind of property he’s going to be living on, and how many dogs it will house.

“À la gauche,” Hannibal directs, sending the car up a narrow side road that Will wouldn’t have noticed at all had they not turned there.

“Are we almost there?” he asks, straightening up.

“Yes,” Hannibal says, looking down at Will in the cab’s rearview mirror. Will meets it for a beat, then turns back to the window.

The road—or maybe it’s a driveway?—is longer than Will was expecting. It snakes through the trees, taking them further and further up a tall hill. Will evaluates the incline, imagining running dogs up and down the slope. It doesn’t seem too steep, but it’ll definitely be good leg work.

“Ici?” the driver asks, slowing down as they approach a house.

“Ouais, ici est bon. Merci,” Hannibal says with a nod. Will slips out as soon as the cab has come to a stop, stretching his legs.

The building is big, but not as big as Will had been imagining. He had a sprawling, ancient manor in his head, something towering and imposing and absolutely unlivable. This is definitely a relief.

While it’s smaller than he had pictured, it’s about as expensive looking as the house in his mind’s eye. The old, somewhat shabby places they passed on the way here pale in comparison.

He hears the car pull away behind him, and then Hannibal appears at his side. They look up at the house together.

“So this is it?” Will asks. Hannibal’s lips twitch.

“This is it. Come,” he says, brushing past Will and striding towards the front door, their single stolen suitcase in hand. Will hesitates before following.

The door is thick and heavy, its wood somewhat weathered. The hinges creak as Hannibal pushes it open. The air inside is a bit stale, as if no one has been there for a while.

“I acquired this property a few years ago,” Hannibal says, setting the suitcase down in the foyer. He removes his shoes and begins to survey the place. “Regrettably, I wasn’t able to get anyone in here to clean while I was… ah, preoccupied.” He runs a finger along the dark wooden coffee table and frowns at the dust it had gathered.

“So you just… bought a place in France?” Will asks bemusedly, carefully kicking off his muddy hiking shoes. “Why?”

“For exactly this sort of occasion. I lead a lifestyle where, every now and then, you need somewhere to disappear to,” Hannibal replies. Will snorts.

He follows Hannibal into the living room, looking around curiously. It’s well furnished, as Will expected: floor to ceiling bookshelves along one wall, a plush leather sofa and a beautiful rug in the middle of the floor, a piano off in the corner. The TV mounted on the wall is very dusty, the model slightly out of date—which is understandable, given the fact that no one has been in here for several years. The colour scheme is very warm, much more so than Hannibal’s place in Baltimore had been. Will is glad for that.

“It’s nice in here,” he says, turning to look at Hannibal. His gaze is not returned. Hannibal ignores him outright, instead walking over to the piano. He bends at the waist, bringing his ear closer to the instrument. The lid that covered the keys was already open. Hannibal lightly dusts them with his sleeve, then gingerly plays a chord. It sounds fine to Will, but Hannibal jerks backward as if they had stung his hand.

“I will have to find a piano tuner…” he mutters before turning on his heel and hurrying into the kitchen. Will watches him go with confusion. Whatever sour mood had settled over him during their travels is still present, it seems. Curiously, he drifts over to the piano. The keys are covered in a layer of dust, just like most of the furniture. He’s not really sure what Hannibal expected; of course it’s dusty.

Will decides to leave Hannibal to whatever it is he’s doing. After all the travelling, he’s just about had his fill of the man for the day anyway. He wanders around the house, trying to get a preliminary sense of its layout. Everything in it is very nice and very dusty; they’ll have to do a pretty thorough cleaning tomorrow.

There are three bathrooms, each with full baths and beautiful tilework in soothing shades of blue, green, and grey. An office filled with even more books and art, carpeted in red, is the first door up the stairs. Two guest bedrooms are just down the hall, both beautifully furnished and filled with stale air. Will opens the windows in each of them.

The master bedroom is surprisingly understated after the over the top decor everywhere else. The wall colours are muted, the carpet simple, and the sculptures dotting each surface rather small. However, that all calls attention to the massive four poster bed. The plush comforter is embroidered with a complicated pattern of vines and flowers. Its fabric is soft and smooth under Will’s fingers as he runs a hand over it. The sheets underneath are a rich, brilliant crimson and exactly the sort of luxurious silk he had expected. He can’t imagine sleeping in something so lavish and expensive.

Is he going to share this ridiculous bed with Hannibal, or is he getting one of the guest bedrooms?

He shakes his head and looks over at the massive bay windows. A cushioned bench is set into the alcove. He rests one leg on it and leans against the window.

The view is difficult to appreciate in the dark, but he can tell that it’s a good one. The vantage point offered by the hill lets Will see all the way down its expanse to the dotting of houses and farmland at its base. It’s another sight that belongs on a beleaguered worker’s desk: the square, white buildings with their cute, red roofs lit by the glows from their windows are exactly as every postcard promised they would be. The forest blanketing the hill is pretty in its own way too, although that is mainly from imagining how nice it will be to romp around in with some canine friends. The thought brings a little smile to his face.

He’ll look into that tomorrow. It’s unreasonable to think that they can actually bring one home tomorrow, their first full day here, but there’s no reason to delay the planning.

It’s late. Will doesn’t feel sleepy, but he is tired. Somewhere along the line, a deep, heavy exhaustion had settled into his body, and he is only now growing aware of it. He sighs, letting his shoulders sag.

His breaths leave little clouds of condensation against the glass of the window. He shifts his gaze from the land outside to that little circle of mist. Its edges grow and shrink slightly as he breathes. It calls to mind an ocean shore, where the water gently laps at the beach.

A lot has happened in the past few days. Perhaps, now that they’re finally somewhere they plan to stay, it’s all starting to catch up with him. He flexes the fingers on his right hand, remembering how it felt to clutch a knife between them. How it felt to have blood, either hot or cooled, covering them. How it felt to grip Hannibal by the shoulders, by the hair, and by the shirt collar. And how it felt to press down hard into Hannibal’s still chest, coaxing it back to life.

Will shuts his eyes and sighs again. He should have let him die on that beach. He should have laid back down and fallen still, waiting for the cold to claim them both. It would have rid the world of a scourge—no, two scourges—that have no right to continue to draw breath.

But he didn't. He had scrabbled for life with the stubbornness of someone who actually deserved it, and forced Hannibal to come with him. And he knows without a doubt that he would do it again.

The exhaustion weighs heavier, as if gravity is pulling down on every particle in his body with twice the usual force. There’s no need to think about it at this point. Slowly, gingerly, he pushes himself away from the window and trudges to the ridiculous, luxurious bed. He has just enough awareness left in him to crawl underneath the covers before sleep overtakes him.

~

A massive clang startles Will the next morning. He sits bolt upright in bed, then scrambles to his feet in a fit of confusion. He isn’t sure where he is, and the more he looks around and blinks and looks around again, the more confused he becomes. Nothing about this place is familiar—not this massive bed, not the view out that giant window, not the understated but tasteful decor or the slightly musty scent of stale air or the giant crash that woke him up.

He forces himself to take deep breaths, to bring his thoughts back down to earth. He rubs his eyes and combs his fingers through his hair as the events of the past few days replay in his head.

The botched get-away plan. Hannibal handing him a glass of wine. Fighting tooth and nail and blade. Falling, falling, drowning. Waking up, and waking Hannibal up as well. That house, that dinner, that crime scene he helped to create. Paris, then Nice, then here. Home.

He’s home.

He lets out a shaky breath and dusts off his rumpled shirt. It’s the slightly too big one he stole from their victim’s drawers. Shopping for clothes will have to be on the to do list.

First is a shower. He feels like an absolute mess, and the hot water against his skin eases some tension out of his muscles and stings his cheek. He keeps his eyes closed, not wanting to see if any blood is staining the water.

When he gets out, he avoids looking into the mirror as well. He wraps himself in towels and roughly rubs his hair dry as he steps back into the bedroom. From this side of the room, he gets a full view of the bed. Only one side looks slept in. Did Hannibal make his side, or did he sleep somewhere else?

He steps on the stolen shirt and pants, which lay crumpled in a pile. His lips twitch with a frown. He doesn’t particularly want to change back into those, not when he just got clean. He’ll have to find an alternative.

His eyes are drawn to the tall, dark bureau tucked against the wall. Curiously, he opens the drawers. A few sweaters, socks, plain button ups, some folded slacks. That confuses him; he had expected Hannibal to have a much more extensive wardrobe, even if this was a backup refuge house.

But he has already worn that stolen shirt for too long, and he doesn’t want to smell like sweat. He pulls on one of the sweaters, which is also a bit too big. A pair of pants and a belt are also swiped, and then Will slips back into the en suite bathroom.

Expensive looking bottles sit in a row on the counter, which has managed to retain its glossiness relatively well. Will wipes his sleeve across it, taking out the thin layer of dust. He selects a comb at random from the three in a stand by the sink, runs it under water, and tries to tidy his damp hair. Although he does his best not to, his gaze keeps returning to the bandage covering the right side of his face.

It’s sore, but in a dull way that fades easily out of mind, like white noise crackling in his skin. In all the bustle, he hasn’t had much time to think about it, and what it’ll do to his face. Hannibal had said something about aesthetic consequences being at a minimum, but who knows what that minimum entails? He puts the comb back in the stand.

Another crash sounds from downstairs, making him jump. He had managed to forget what woke him up.

It’s suspicious. Will can’t think of anything Hannibal could be doing that would lead to a noise like that, like metal slamming against something solid. Except fighting.

He sets his jaw. There’s no way they’ve been found out already, is there? Did someone know about this place? The only person he can think of who might know about Hannibal’s escape spots is Bedelia. Would Jack have gone to her by now, and would she have given it away so readily?

Will wouldn’t necessarily put it past her. Fuck.

His heart pounds as he rifles through the cupboards for a weapon. A narrow, velvet box catches his eye. Inside is exactly what he had hoped to find: a gleaming, viciously sharp straight razor. Will suspects that there isn’t a room in this place without a carefully stowed weapon of some sort.

With his blade in hand, Will creeps down the stairs. The adrenaline coursing through his veins has kept him from scrutinizing the situation too closely; had his mind been clearer, he might have considered how strange it is that a scuffle would be so quiet, that Hannibal had not called for him. (Later, he will wonder why he assumed that Hannibal would call for him to begin with.) Had his mind been clearer, he might have been less surprised when he snuck into the kitchen and found only Hannibal inside.

But even a clearer mind would not have let him anticipate the mess he finds.

Hannibal is kneeling on the tile, furiously cleaning up the mess from what looks like two overturned pots. One of them looks badly dented. He is still wearing the clothing they had stolen, the slightly too tight sleeves of his shirt pushed up over his elbows. The spilled food has stained the front of it in big, dark patches. With each wipe of the dish towel in his hand, quiet swears and pained grunts slip passed his lips.

Will stills, again lingering in a kitchen doorway to watch Hannibal work. But where he had before seen the man in his element, commanding the space with elegance and confident poise, he is now privy to Hannibal in distress and frustration, on his knees in the remains of a ruined meal.

It’s as fascinating as it is confusing in its unfamiliarity.

Will closes the blade and slips it into his pocket before saying, “What happened?”

It is Hannibal’s turn to jump. He winces when he straightens to look up at Will. “You’re awake,” he says, quickly schooling his face back into controlled neutrality. But Will had already seen.

“Hard not to be with the noise you were making.” Will folds his arms over his chest and cocks his head a few degrees to the side. “What happened?” he repeats.

Hannibal’s eyes narrow, and he sighs through his nose. “I was attempting to prepare some sort of breakfast out of what little food was in the pantries.” He gives the mess on the floor a sour look. “Unfortunately, my efforts have gone to waste.”

“How’d you manage that?” Will asks. He can’t decide if he should be offering to help clean up or not. Just being here would have been strange enough, but with this unexpected turn of events, Will has absolutely no clue how to navigate his situation.

“It’s not important,” Hannibal grumbles. He begins to stand, but he stills when a wave of pain rolls through his abdomen, snatching his breath. To disguise the pause, he picks the dented pot up off the ground. He examines it with a furrowed brow when he straightens the rest of the way.

“Is it fixable?” Will asks, stepping forward. There’s no telling how expensive it was, but he suspects that replacing it is not a cost to be brushed off.

Hannibal sets the pot down on the counter a little too hard. The third clang of the day is a much smaller one, and Will’s reaction is contained to a small, twitching frown. “No,” Hannibal says curtly.

Will watches quietly as Hannibal gathers himself. He works hard to keep his body language and expression neutral, but Will can read him well enough to notice the frustration. He just doesn’t know what to do with that knowledge.

It must be a result of the travel. Arranging a fugitive’s escape for two has to be strenuous even without injury. That explanation makes enough sense for Will, who is not eager to engage Hannibal in conversation right now. Not when he’s in... whatever mood this is.

Will lets an awkward silence linger, pursing his lips. “I’m going to look around the property,” he says gingerly, “I want a sense of where we are, if we’re going to be here for a while.” He pauses. “We are going to be here for a while, right?”

Hannibal nods. “Until it proves unsafe here, or until it seems like we are able to return to Italy.” They both know that won’t be anytime soon.

“Great. I’ll be back later then.” And before Hannibal can say anything to dissuade him, Will quickly leaves the kitchen, stuffs his feet into his shoes, and hops out the door.

Hannibal is left standing in the midst of his mess, the soiled towel clenched tightly in his fist. A swell of anger burns in his chest. He chokes it down. He has not felt so precariously on edge for quite a while, and it is absolutely pissing him off. This is victory. He has won. Everything is perfectly in place, and yet he still feels like he is walking on a thin sheet of glass.

Everything is perfectly in place. Will is here, and they are safely isolated together, ready to begin their life as he had been fantasizing for all of those torturous years in prison.

He grits his teeth and twists the towel tightly, clutching it with enough force to turn his knuckles white. He wants to destroy something. Intentionally, that is; the dented remains of his pot only irritate him further.

But it is not yet time for that. There are too many affairs to settle first.

He breathes, remembering techniques so banal in psychiatry that they seem barely worth acknowledging. He has never had any use for them. And yet here he is, counting out the beats of his inhales. It does nothing to ease his irritability, and the thin sheet of glass he walks on still seems too brittle to bear weight, but it gets him to leave the paralyzing anger behind.

He whips the soggy towel against the sink, taking the barest of satisfactions at the sound of its impact. Then, he pushes his hand through his hair, taking care not to smear anything into it. He needs to shower, as the travel has made him feel grimy, but it doesn’t seem worth the effort quite yet.

He looks around the kitchen. What isn’t covered in his disastrous failure is coated in dust. He needs to clean the entire place, and while hiring help isn’t outside of his means, he’ll have to do it himself if he wants to keep the location mostly isolated. The name of the previous night’s cab driver pops back into his head, as do the prying questions he had asked about Will’s injury. He’ll have to take care of him sometime soon, perferably before the month is out.

What a hassle all of this has been, and it is still not done.

Food, he should begin with food. Neither he nor Will has eaten since their flight, and Hannibal barely touched his meal then. He’s hungry. Some part of this frustration must just be hunger.

Grocery shopping, then. At least he can begin with something of an enjoyable task.

He steels himself before pulling a jacket over his stained shirt and heading out to the garage. It has been a while, but he recalls setting his car up with something to keep the battery alive. Hopefully it worked.

The black Bentley is familiar, pleasant, and not hideously dirty, which is some small relief. He could look into acquiring another motorcycle soon. Will might like that.

He disconnects the battery maintainer and slips into the front of the car, inhaling the comforting smell of leather. Oh, how he has missed his luxury vehicles. The plush seat still feels magical to him after his incarceration, even if it has been a few days. The comfort and the rush of freedom almost quells his anger completely. Almost.

In a gesture of mercy, the car does start. However, something about how it handles feels wrong to Hannibal as he makes the thirty minute trip to Nice. The realization that he will probably need to get it serviced soon is an annoying one. He’ll have to get some sort of secondary vehicle before that. Should he let the motorcycle be a surprise, or would Will enjoy helping him select it?

He mulls that question over as he pays for valet parking and begins his task. And then, he is a block away before he remembers that he’d forgotten to research the best local venders. His last visit to Nice was not a recent one; any places he used to frequent are likely just distant memories by now. A twinge of bitter deja vu sets him further on edge.

Specialty shops are usually the safest bet, so he sticks to them as he gathers colourful produce, expensive wine, rich cheese, and a lovely looking loaf of bread. He finds himself running back and forth between the carpark and the stores as his carrying capacity is met four times over. It feels so chaotic. How wretched, that this cannot be enjoyable.

It’s exhausting and stressful, this mad chase for appropriate groceries. It eats up many hours as well; when he finally slips back into his car and prepares to return home, it is well into the afternoon. He is practically starved, and his arms are tired from lugging around massive armfuls of alcohol and oil.

Perhaps he plays fast and loose with the speed limits, but who could blame him? Who knows what sort of garbage Will could be foraging from the pantries by now? There isn’t much left aside from jars of olives. The thought makes Hannibal cringe. He can’t put it past Will to eat something so offensive if left to his own devices, and that simply will not do.

He tries to carry as much inside as possible in one trip, but not at the food’s risk. He comes terrifyingly close to losing a particularly expensive bottle of Montrachet wine on his third trip, and resolves to be more careful with the rest. When he has finally dumped the last of his bags onto the kitchen counter, he understands why people can be so eager to order in fast food.

But he has not sunk that low just yet. He throws himself together the sloppiest, most inelegant tomato sandwich he has ever made. The quality of his ingredients is the only thing standing between it and the slop he was forced to choke down in prison. And because of that reminder, it infuriates him.

He eats it anyway, because he is very hungry, but he does not make one for Will. Will deserves better than that, and he will be given better. And also because he is not here.

His absence doesn’t quite click for Hannibal until he is mostly done with the incredibly irritating lunch. How long has Will been outside for? What could he possibly be doing out there? He said he wanted to get a sense of the property. As far as Hannibal is concerned, there’s not much to familiarize himself with; the house is two floors, and the outdoors is just trees on a hill. Perhaps that sort of thing is fascinating to Will, but surely it couldn’t hold his attention for this long.

He wouldn’t have run away, would he?

The thought incites such a strong emotional reaction that Hannibal physically recoils. Anger, confusion, shock, horror, betrayal, all roiling in his gut at the same time. He has felt it before, years ago. But it was substantiated then. This is nothing more than a fleeting fear, a baseless concern. Will would not leave. Hannibal would not let that happen.

Despite his hunger, he feels put off the sandwich, and he abandons the remaining bites. It is no great loss.

With his pause to eat and rest thoroughly spoiled, the only thing left to do is return to dealing with the long list of chores. He gets out a clean towel and tries to finish cleaning the floor, but his hours of absence have let it dry, leaving a crust on the tile. He is forced to break out some floor cleaner and a scrub brush, his tired arms protesting all the way through.

As soon as that mess has been attended to, he dumps the abandoned dishes from that morning into the sink, electing to make do with other ones. Washing the dishes is a problem for later, when he feels more like himself.

Because this is not like himself, and he is already growing impatient with it. There are too many things to do for this.

The thought of being able to cook properly is a good one, at least. He paws through a cabinet to find one of his recipe books and flicks through it, searching for something appropriately delicious to celebrate their first day here. A shame that they will not be able to eat to the fullest level of luxury, but he does not yet have the proper time to dedicate to that; it will come later. Will is going to help, and it will be perfection.

He pulls himself out of his fantasy. That time will come, and it will be glorious, but he must first navigate through the present. He selects a recipe for chicken basquaise—it seems appropriate to herald their time in France with a French dish, and its touch of spice might even serve as a subtle homage to the foods of Louisiana. Hopefully, it will help Will associate this place with home.

On that note, Will is still not back. Hannibal tells himself that it is nothing as he begins working on their dinner, that Will simply enjoys being outdoors. That he lost track of time while on his walk. It troubles him that Will would go for so long without eating, that hunger would not have brought him back by now.

His worries are refocused when he has set his chicken to sear and turns to chop his vegetables. He is missing several key ingredients for this dish. Perhaps he could pass off a pilaf without the golden raisins and pistachios, but a basquaise without espelette peppers? They are absolutely crucial, the foundation upon which the flavour for this dish is built. He stares into his freshly stocked vegetable crisper, unable to believe his own lack of foresight. Going out to buy some simply isn’t an option like it might have been in Florence or Baltimore; the drive is too long when he has already put the chicken on. Not to mention Will’s worrying absence. He doesn’t want to be away from the house any longer while Will is still out in the woods somewhere.

It is not beyond his capabilities to improvise something out of this blunder; he can replace the heat with the right cocktail of spices, and there are enough bell peppers to stand in for the basic pepper flavour. But it’s frustrating that he should have to when the idea fit so well for his purposes. He brutalizes the onions, the thumps of his knife against the cutting board pounding with his heart.

As it would happen, hunger is in the process of bringing Will back. He had walked quite a ways away from their house, keeping track of naturally forming paths that he could wear down further over time. As he thought, the hill’s incline was not too steep to be unpleasant. It might take him a little while to get used to, but it hasn’t done much more than slow him down a little so far.

The trees are different from the ones in Virginia, which he finds himself missing. But he can get used to these. He can enjoy these.

He has no concept of exactly how much land is theirs, but the rural isolation makes him think that it is probably a lot (and that the exact boarders are not too important, as long as he doesn’t stray onto farmland). It will be a perfectly good space to run dogs around, and he is already enjoying the idea. He’s not sure how it will go, but the subject will definitely be broached today; he wants to get the ball rolling as soon as possible. Assumedly, Hannibal would have anticipated this very early in his deciding to run off with Will, and he won’t put up an unnecessary fuss.

Will wants to believe that, but doubt nags at him as he retraces his steps up the hill. Try as he might, he cannot quite imagine Hannibal living with a dog.

He has been thinking about the distance to the coastline, and if they will be getting a boat. He hopes so; it would be a great project to tinker with. Scoping out the garage was the first thing he did upon leaving the house, and he’s sure they have the space to handle something like that. Although, he might have to have a talk with Hannibal about there only being one car. He doesn’t like the idea of being cooped up here whenever Hannibal isn’t around. That level of dependency makes him uneasy.

Will wipes his boots on the porch before opening the front door, not in the mood to be scolded for tracking dirt inside (even if he is going to take them off anyway). The loud thumping sound from the kitchen surprises him. He stuffs his hand into his pocket, where his stolen straight razor still sits.

He assumes there isn’t an intruder this time, so he doesn’t try too hard to stay quiet as he walks to the kitchen. The sound does baffle him though; it’s like a knife chopping, but much louder and faster.

It turns out that is exactly what it is. Will watches with confusion as Hannibal annihilates a seemingly innocent onion.

“Did it cut you off in traffic or something?” Will asks with a twitching smile. Hannibal straightens up at the sound of his voice, his knife freezing mid swing.

“You’re back,” he says, his voice as blank and level as he can manage.

“So it seems.”

“What were you doing out there for so long? It has been hours,” Hannibal says. He hasn’t looked at Will yet.

“I don’t know, I guess I got lost in thought.” He leans against the wall, trying to figure out what Hannibal is making based on the smells in the kitchen. Surprisingly, there isn’t much to speak of just yet. The sizzling from a large pot says something is at least in process. Will cranes his neck to look at the clock on the stove. It’s close to 5pm. He was gone for a long time. “It seems pretty nice out there.”

Hannibal doesn’t answer, giving his ravaged onion two more chops for good measure before tossing it into the pot. He gets out some bell peppers and starts in on them (more gently this time). “Did you come back to eat anything while I was out?”

Will shakes his head. “Didn’t think about it.” He clears his throat and starts to say, “But I did think a fair bit about getting—“

Hannibal cuts him off. “So you have eaten nothing all day?” he asks, slightly increasing the force with which he cuts into the peppers. Will notices.

“I guess not,” he says, his brows furrowed.

Hannibal adds his peppers to the pot as well. “Do not do that. I will not have you going hungry,” he scolds. Will frowns, straightening up.

“Are you... telling me off? Like a little kid?” he asks disbelievingly.

“I will not have you going hungry, Will,” Hannibal repeats, finally turning to look at him. His expression is an attempt at that schooled neutrality Will finds so annoying, but the frown underneath is plain as day. It reads almost like concern.

Will shakes his head and folds his arms over his chest. “I didn’t ‘go hungry’, Hannibal. The reason I didn’t think to bother with lunch is because I didn’t GET hungry.”

Hannibal’s frown deepens. “That is absurd. You haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

Will frowns right back. “Well, Hannibal, I don’t have a particularly large appetite,” he says, his tone encroaching upon accusatory. He shouldn’t escalate this, but after all the simmering anger he has been dealing with, this sudden concern annoys him. Hannibal’s grip on the knife tightens.

He knows that it is a provocation, but Hannibal asks anyway, “And why is that?”

“Because, Hannibal,” Will says, venom slipping into his tone, “That is what happens when you get stabbed in the stomach.”

Hannibal slams his knife into the cutting board, wedging its blade into the wood. He will regret that later; it was a very nice one. “You turned me in. It was deserved,” he says, his voice low and brimming with rage.

“Oh yeah? Well, this is the result. I don’t get very hungry, Hannibal. I won’t be able to eat much from your big feasts. Do you understand?”

Hannibal growls, wincing at Will’s words. He knows this. He knew it would happen the second he drove the knife in. “It was deserved,” he insists, “There are consequences to betrayal.”

“Betrayal?!” Will laughs. “YOU want to talk about betrayal?! You framed me! You put me on death row!”

Hannibal glowers at him, the fury bubbling higher and higher in his chest. “I sacrificed my life, my freedom for you,” he hisses, “Do not speak to me like that.”

“Are you kidding me?! I’m the one who left a life for this! I was married!”

“And how was that going, Will?” Hannibal isn’t sure what is making him resort to such petty taunting. He isn’t thinking straight. “You were perfectly suited, I suppose? She was entirely appreciative of you and everything that you are?” He sneers, his heart racing loudly enough that he can hear it pulsing in his ears. “That was not the place for you, you know this. It is why you came with me.”

Will bristles, his anger rising to match Hannibal’s. “You got arrested because you handed yourself in of your own accord, and for your own crimes. I have no sympathy for you.” He doesn’t dignify Hannibal’s low blow with an acknowledgement.

Hannibal is so furious that his clenched fists have begun to tremble. He can’t remember the last time he felt so overwhelmed by his own emotions. He can feel heat in his cheeks and his chest seems tight. “You are ungrateful,” he says, his voice strained.

“Oh, so I’m supposed to THANK you for every fucked up thing you did to me then? You want me to thank you for stabbing me in the stomach?” Will is too riled up to analyze why, but it is clear that particular event is, for whatever reason, a chink in Hannibal’s carefully built up armour. Some part of him laughs at his attempting to use guilt in this fight.

Hannibal winces again, almost imperceptibly so. But it’s enough for Will to notice. “I have given you nothing but gifts. Opportunities to experience something profound and beautiful, and all you have done is spit in my face for my troubles.”

“There is nothing beautiful about this, Hannibal,” Will spits, pointing sharply to his own stomach. “It’s grotesque and debilitating, and you know it. You know it, I know you do! We both know you fucked up when you did this! You get it?! You fucked up!”

For whatever reason, that is the tipping point. Hannibal wrenches the knife out of the cutting board and starts to lunge forward.

It happens so fast that neither of them can quite process it. Will is blinded by adrenaline and self preservation. And Hannibal’s vision vanishes in a burst of white as hot, sharp pain hits him head on.


	3. Chapter 3

_The restaurant Hannibal brought his company to was his favourite at the time, although he would find it less appealing when he returned with his colleagues a few weeks later. It had recently earned a Michelin star, a fact that Hannibal explained cordially as he held the door open for Lee. He bought their way past the wait list and into a private dining room; Lee blushed and politely protested the expense, but Hannibal insisted._

_Lee squirmed in the plush seat, apparently unable to settle himself. It made Hannibal smile._

“ _Is your chair uncomfortable?” he asked, “I could request a different one for you if something is wrong with that one.”_

“ _Oh, no, not at all!” Lee said quickly, jumping to appease as Hannibal suspected he would. “I just... wow, I don’t think I’ve ever been in this, uh... fancy of a place before,” he said a little sheepishly._

“ _Is that so?” Hannibal paused to let Lee nod, watching his curls bounce with the motion. “Well, I hope you find the experience pleasurable,” Hannibal purred. His tone earned him a furious blush, to his delight._

_Their waitress greeted them in fast Italian, which made Lee hesitate. Hannibal gladly swooped in to order his drink for him._

“ _What did you say?” Lee asked after she had left with their drinks._

“ _I ordered a bottle of Brunello for us to share. You do like red wine, yes?”_

_Lee missed a beat before answering. “Oh, yeah, sure. Thanks for stepping in there; my Italian’s still pretty rusty.”_

_The pause did not go unnoticed, but Hannibal decided to let it slide for the moment. Perhaps he was still trying to parse the dialogue that had happened in front of him. “Of course. It can be very stressful, learning a new language in a place where it is spoken fluently,” he said sympathetically._

“ _Was it like that for you?” Lee asked, “Learning English, I mean? I can tell it’s not your first language.” Hannibal blinked. “Because of your accent,” Lee quickly clarified, perhaps sensing that what he had said could be considered a bit rude. “You speak it really well.”_

“ _Ah, I see,” Hannibal said. Their waitress returned with their bottle of wine, buying him some time to think about how he would interpret the question. Lee thanked the waitress in clumsy Italian, giving her a twitchy smile. He sniffed his wine before taking a testing sip. Apparently surprised by the taste, his eyebrows raised and then furrowed. The familiarity of those movements let Hannibal’s unease ebb. The occasional rude remark could be forgiven._

“ _It wasn’t quite like that, no. I was very close to some English-speaking relatives of mine in my youth, which gave me the luxury of learning it fairly early,” Hannibal explained. “How do you find the wine?”_

“ _It’s nice,” Lee said, taking another, longer sip. “I don’t actually drink very much wine, so I wasn’t sure I would like it. But it’s really nice.”_

_Hannibal_ _paused again, disguising it by drinking from his own glass. “I thought you said you liked red wine.”_

“ _I don’t dislike it, I just... don’t drink it very much, I guess. I’m more of a beer kind of guy.”_

“ _How about whiskey? I could see if they have a nicely aged scotch for you, if you would prefer that,” Hannibal offered. Bringing home the leftover wine would be a mild nuisance, but it would be far from the end of the world._

“ _Oh, no no, this is fine. Great, actually. Thank you,” Lee said quickly, flashing Hannibal a grin._

“ _You’re very welcome.” Hannibal finally spared a glance to his menu, forcing himself to look away from his companion. To his slight disappointment, they had added English translations of the dish descriptions_ _since his last visit_ _. He had been hoping to order for Lee under the guise of simplifying the process. “Have you thought about what you would like to eat? Anything you want.”_

_Lee_ _winced when he looked down at the menu, perhaps noticing the prices. How cute. “Um... It’s a work in progress I think,” he said, squirming in his chair and squinting at the text through his glasses. “What does pigeon taste like?”_

“ _At the risk of sounding clichéd, it is similar to the dark meat of a chicken,” Hannibal explained, “Quite pleasant. Although, I myself am more partial to red meats.” He took a sip of wine to cover his smirk._

“ _Like chicken...” he echoed, leaning closer to the menu as he thought. He was enchanting to watch. “Okay. Okay, I think I’ve decided.”_

“ _Excellent. By your question, I assume you have decided on their pigeon and thyme stuffed cappelletti?”_

“ _Yeah, exactly that._ _It sounds like a rich ravioli.” Lee paused, then added with a smile, “In both senses of ‘rich’.”_

_Hannibal chuckled. “While I do appreciate a play on words, I must protest, as it is one of the cheapest items on the menu.”_

_Lee sat back in his chair, polishing off his first glass of wine and pouring himself another, vastly overfilling it. Hannibal painfully restrained himself from intervening. “What are you going to get?” he asked._

_Their waitress returned before Hannibal could answer. He placed their orders, making sure to offer her a kind remark about the quality of her service. She smiled, thanked him, and walked off briskly._

“ _The veal tongue,” Hannibal said, turning back to Lee and meeting his gaze directly._ _Lee didn’t look away._

“ _I’ve never had tongue,” Lee said,_ _laughing sheepishly._ _“I don’t think I’d have the courage to try it, honestly.”_

“ _Oh, there is no courage required. Tongue is an excellent thing to eat; truly, one of the finest delicacies available to us,” Hannibal said, letting his eyes drift up and down over Lee. Lee’s own tongue flicked over his lips, sending a spark of warmth through Hannibal’s stomach. He wondered if Lee realized he had done it. “If you would like to try some of mine, I would be happy to help you expand your horizons.”_

“ _Huh?” Lee said, practically jumping. Oh, how precious._

“ _The veal,” Hannibal said, not bothering to hide his amusement. Lee’s cheeks flushed._

“ _Oh, r-right, of course,” Lee said, covering his mouth with his hand and looking away from Hannibal._

“ _Did you think I meant something else, Lee?” he asked, delighting in making his companion uncomfortable. The more Lee squirmed and twitched, the more he looked like Will._

“ _I, uh... I mean, I just... You did make it sound like...” he attempted, unable to finish any of his sentences. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Sorry.”_

“ _It is quite alright,” Hannibal said, finishing his first glass of wine as Lee finished his second. He poured them both another. “I will admit that I am interested in the prospect, if it appeals to you as well.” He delicately swirled his wine around the glass, watching the legs trickle down_ _its_ _delicate surface. “After dinner, of course.”_

_T_ _hat really turned Lee’s face red. Hannibal imagined the blood rushing to his skin and sighed happily. “A-are you serious?” he asked._

“ _I would never make that sort of suggestion in jest. It would be quite rude of me,” Hannibal said._

_Lee looked Hannibal in the eye, searching for any sign of insincerity. Hannibal steadily met his gaze._

_It was something he had always enjoyed, studying Will’s face. There was so much to consider, so much to capture his attention. He could trace his_ _bone structure, study the delicate but well defined angles and curves that made Will’s cheeks, jawline, forehead, and nose. He could follow the curls and flips of his hair, whether he chose to wear it messy or tidily combed. He could stare directly into his eyes, as he was doing now with this new companion._

_But it wasn’t the same with Lee. In Will’s eyes, he could see the_ _sharp wit and wicked intelligence that made him so deeply alluring. It was one of the traits Hannibal cared for most about his Will: that he could see when the cogs in his mind were turning, that he could watch the full extent of his thought processes unfold in the twitches of his brow and the look in his eyes. In Lee, he saw... clarity. Simplicity._

_Hannibal’_ _s brow furrowed ever so slightly. Lee did not falter. To Hannibal’s distress, he realized that meant Lee must not have noticed. Will would have noticed the tiny indication of a frown._

_He was shaken from his thoughts by the arrival of their dinner. It smelled as delicious as he had come to expect from the location, and the plating was quite exquisite._

“ _Wow, this smells really good,” Lee said, his voice unfettered and happy. He had absolutely no awareness of the sudden shift in Hannibal’s mood._

“ _It will taste excellent as well. Their Michelin star is well deserved,” he said, picking up his knife and fork. He would not allow a moment of petty realization to ruin this for him; up until mere moments ago, he was the happiest he had been since... Well, for a while._

_Lee ate quickly and without grace. Hannibal tried to enjoy seeing his enthusiasm, which looked so similar to how Will’s had been_ _once_ _, back before he knew exactly what he was being fed. There was something particularly voracious about it. But Hannibal was having trouble re-immersing himself in the illusion, now that he had accidentally lifted the veil._

_He ate his veal slowly and contemplatively, trying to revel in its delightful flavour. But it_ _did not seem to live up to what he had hoped for when he ordered it. He felt almost put off of his food, and that angered him. He ate it anyway, forcing himself to appreciate the technical prowess as he would when studying an unappealing painting. He did not watch Lee as closely as he had at the beginning of their meal, nor did he engage him in as much conversation._

_If Lee noticed the shift, he made no acknowledgement of it. The wine he had downed seemed to be taking hold, loosening his posture and his tongue. He talked enough for them both, and Hannibal smiled and nodded when appropriate._

_When their plates had been cleared, Hannibal decided against dessert_ _and requested their check. He had been entertaining the idea of sharing tiramisu with his companion, but the idea had lost some of its lustre._

“ _Where are we going to go?” Lee asked as Hannibal led him out of the restaurant with a hand at the small of his back. “To your house?”_

“ _Oh, no, I’m afraid my home is not currently in a state to entertain,” Hannibal lied, “I thought I would acquire us a hotel room for the night.”_

“ _I have a hotel room already, we can go there? You’ve already spent a lot of money on me,” Lee suggested, stumbling over a curb and grabbing Hannibal’s arm to keep himself on his feet. Hannibal caught him,_ _just barely resisting_ _the urge to let go and watch his head_ _smash into_ _the pavement._

“ _If it makes no difference to you, I would prefer to take us somewhere... luxurious.” Hannibal_ _stopped them both to brush his hands over Lee’s wrinkled jacket, neatening it. “Spending money on you is no trouble at all.” He gave Lee a smile, and Lee beamed back._

“ _Okay,” Lee acquiesced immediately. His suggestion was clearly just a courtesy, and this was exactly what he wanted to hear._

_H_ _annibal brought them to his favourite of Florence’s luxury hotels, and Lee was quickly enchanted by its appearance. With some quick bribery, Hannibal_ _got_ _them into a particularly lovely private suite. A bottle of expensive champaign awaited them, and Hannibal wasted no time in popping it open._

“ _Loosening me up?” Lee asked with a laugh as a flute was pressed into his hand._ _He downed it without protest._

“ _There is a benefit to relaxation,” Hannibal replied, knocking back half a glass in one gulp. Had his mood been different, he would have been_ _resistant_ _to_ _the prospect_ _of wasting such an expensive drink_ _. But there, as he shrugged off his jacket and loosened his tie, it did not seem_ _particularly important_ _._

_Lee shucked his_ _shirt in seconds, then plastered himself to Hannibal and planted a sloppy kiss to the hollow of his cheek. The forwardness surprised him, as Lee had been rather bashful up until_ _that moment_ _._

_Hannibal allowed Lee to undo the buttons of his shirt, but knocked his hands away when he started to ease it off. A light push sent Lee stumbling backwards, nearly falling onto the bed. He laughed airily._

“ _Careful, you’re gonna knock me over,” he chirped, bending at the waist and hopping on one foot to pull off his shoe._

“ _Wouldn’t want that,” Hannibal said dryly. Lee’s_ _drunken movements slow_ _ed_ _him down, and Hannibal_ _wa_ _s left to watch him_ _fumble with his belt and get his legs tangled in his pants. He could have gone over and helped, but instead he simply observed from a few paces away._

_When Lee had finally squirmed his way out of all but his socks, Hannibal pushed him down onto the silk sheets of the hotel bed. Lee wasted no time in meeting his lips, kissing him wetly. His breath tasted only of_ _bitter_ _alcohol, as if he had been drinking varnish instead of expensive wines and champagnes. That startled Hannibal—almost enough to make him break away. Almost. Instead, he grabbed a handful of Lee’s curly hair and clenched it tight, holding his head in place. It was coarse against his fingers. Almost wiry. Not soft at all. The pit in Hannibal’s stomach settled heavier._

_Lee had no inkling of his partner’s growing displeasure. He moaned happily as Hannibal held him close, throwing his arms around his shoulders and grinding against him._ _Hannibal tried to enjoy it, but he was too distracted by the sudden realization that Lee’s nails were too long and his legs too gangly._

_The first bite sunk into Lee’s lip. He yelp_ _ed_ _, the sound muffled in Hannibal’s mouth. Hannibal move_ _d_ _Lee’s head to the side with a yank on his hair, a little too hard, and start_ _ed_ _kissing his neck._

“ _You’re—ah!—one hell of a hair puller, eh?” Lee_ _laughed_ _breathlessly, his voice cracking when Hannibal bit his neck. It was also too hard, but only just._

_The question went unanswered as Hannibal trailed down Lee’s neck and to his collarbone. The kisses morphed into persistent bites, each one harder than the last. Soon, Lee’s groans were from pain alone, no pleasure involved._

“ _H-Hannibal,” Lee gasped, digging the pads of his fingers into the man’s back, “Ease off there, yeah? That hurts.”_

_Hannibal growled from somewhere deep in his throat, twisting his hand in Lee’s hair._ _This was supposed to make that stone in his stomach disappear._ _It had been working at dinner, letting him feel weightless and in control and fully himself for the first time in months. He had felt hungry. And then it had crumbled, stealing the experience from him before he could enjoy a single meal._

_The taste of skin was_ _failing him as well_ _: it was wrong, all wrong. Lee smelled like fresh pine, and his skin lacked the veneer of salt from sweat. The taste was wrong, his hair was wrong, his stubble scratched against Hannibal’s face instead of tickling pleasantly. He bit down harder._

“ _Sh-shit!” Lee hissed. He grabbed his own fistful of Hannibal’s hair and tried to pull his head away. “Knock it off! That’s too—fuck!—rough!”_

_A_ _flash of desperation and rage blocked Hannibal’s vision. With an animalistic snarl, he sank his sharp teeth into Lee’s stomach with enough force to break the skin. Lee yelled, spasming underneath him. Even the rush of blood in Hannibal’s mouth was wrong, somehow, as if the taste of the metal was off._

“ _Get OFF of me!” Lee shrieked, driving his foot into Hannibal’s gut. The blow winded him. He slackened enough for Lee to writhe away, scrambling to his feet. They stared at each other in shock, both gasping for air. “Wh-what the fuck was that?!” Lee hissed, looking down at the bloody holes in his skin. The other bites were already beginning to bruise._

_A reasonable person would have apologized, but Hannibal had no intentions of doing so_ _._ _A steely composure had already settled itself over him._ _He looked Lee over from head to toe._ _It was like a fog that was shrouding him had dissipated, and Hannibal was seeing him for the first time._ _In this new, clearer light, t_ _he resemblance to Will was not that strong. He licked his lips clean of blood_ _and_ _sat up._

_Lee shook his head hard and grab_ _bed_ _his clothes,_ _stuffing his limbs into them_ _. “Thanks for dinner,” he said as he fumbled with his belt, “But I think I’m gonna go back to my own hotel.”_

_Hannibal stood slowly, giving Lee a reasonable amount of distance._ _The stone in his stomach weighed heavily. The game was over, and any_ _enjoyment it had brought him was long gone. There was only one way this could end._

_Perhaps it was for the best that the resemblance to Will was not that strong._

_Hannibal rolled his shoulders and steadied himself with a breath. There was only one way this could end, only one way it ever could have ended._

_His prey was too drunk to sense the approach. A quick snap of the neck would have done the trick, but it felt improper. A sloppy sound of confusion escaped Lee’s chest as he was put in a smothering headlock._ _Long_ _nails scrabbled at Hannibal’s hands and arms as he fought the hold, gasping and writhing._

_Hannibal would have been unaffected by such a futile, drunken struggle in any other circumstance. But, even though the resemblance to Will was not that strong, some part of his heart still twinged as he heard the increasingly desperate gasps and stifled the erratic squirms. He shut his eyes, pressed his cheek against Lee’s curls, and sighed, trying to pretend that they were the right texture and carried the right scent._

_A sudden explosion of sharp pain startled him so much that he dropped his prey. He staggered backward a step, trying to regain his bearings as his heart blasted in his ears._ _He had been so absorbed in trying to recapture his illusion that he let his guard down._

_H_ _is senses were in overload, his mouth and nose overwhelmed by the metallic stench of blood, which he struggled to ignore as he lunged forward. Lee started to yell, but the sound cut off in his throat as Hannibal fell on top of him_ _and brought_ _them both to the ground. A pocket knife skittered out of his hand._

_Hannibal’s ears were ringing. He growled like a wounded animal, bearing unusually pointed teeth. Lee kept squirming, scrabbling hopelessly for the knife he had dropped. Hannibal’s blood,_ _g_ _ushing from a gash directly across his forehead, splattered_ _on his_ _face._

_This struggle_ _was messy, far messier than Hannibal had been with a kill in years. The damage_ _was_ _done. No need for restraint._

_Hannibal clamped a hand over the man’s mouth, grinding his skull into the carpet and muffling his attempts to yell. He leaned forward and, like a rabid dog, sank his teeth into his prey’s neck._ _He jerked his head backwards and painted the room with blood. It tasted sour, like something delicious left to spoil. The body beneath him stilled quickly, with very little further protest, and he was left sat atop it, panting._

_The cut on his head was not serious. In fact, it was quite shallow; had it been anywhere else, it would not have bled so profusely. Applied pressure stemmed its flow, and his hair covered the worst of it if_ _he didn’t_ _sweep it_ _back. He washed his face well._

_The rest of the mess was trickier to clean. Distinguishing between his own blood and that of his prey was near impossible, forcing him to clean all of it. Had his mood been different, he might have come up with some way to dress up this crime scene. But he seemed nearly incapable of even looking at the body without the weight in his stomach growing heavier. The sooner he could get out of there, the better._

_He harvested no meat. The taste lingering in his mouth put him off the idea._

_~_

 

The struggle ends before it can begin. Will grips the straight razor tight, ready for a retort that doesn’t come. His breath comes short and rapid, sped up by the rush of adrenaline. But Hannibal does nothing. The blow had sent him staggering backward one or two steps. Hehad stuck his hand out to catch himself on the counter and leans on it now. His head is ducked.

Will can’t be certain this isn’t a feint of some sort, so he doesn’t approach at first. He waits, watching Hannibal for a sign of movement, for a cue that an escalation is on the horizon. None comes. Blood drips down Hannibal’s arm as he presses his hand against his face.

A small, strange, shuddering sound escapes from him. That is what gets Will to back off. He loosens his grip on the razor, a horrible sense of confusion brewing in his mind. “H... Hannibal?” he says cautiously, probing the situation with the caution of someone approaching a wild animal.

Hannibal straightens but doesn’t look at Will. He wipes the curtain of blood from his eye with a clumsy swipe. Will had clipped him just over his left brow. He looks at his hand, sees the red covering it, and presses it back to the cut. He clears his throat awkwardly.

The silence between them is dense and heavy, thickened by the severity of the shift. Will’s anger isn’t gone, but he stamps it down for the moment and lets confusion take its place. He takes a slow, tentative step closer to Hannibal. The amount of blood blooming from the gash gives Will a certain sense of satisfaction.

“I’m not sorry,” he says, finally breaking the tense quiet. He means it, fully. They both know it’s true. Hannibal doesn’t respond. “You deserved that.”

Will swallows hard. In a sense, he has been waiting for this. His moment to lash out at Hannibal in return for everything he had done. Opportunities have presented themselves before, but never like this; never so visceral and private, with just the two of them and no third force to rally against. And although he could put the man before him through hell, the idea has lost some of the lustre it used to hold.

“Don’t lunge at me. I’m not going to just let you attack me.” He pauses again, trying to pick his words with care. There’s so much he could say, so much he has been waiting for a chance to get off his chest; and yet, it feels almost impossible to hit the right nails. “I... I sh-shouldn’t be here. I’m here against my better judgement. If I were thinking clearly, I would be getting ahold of Jack and telling him you kidnapped me or something. I could do that. I could do that right now, Hannibal.”

A clipped, almost rattling breath catches Will off guard. For one shocking, horrible second, he thinks Hannibal is crying. He takes a step closer, grabs Hannibal’s arm, pulls his hand away from his face. He can see no tears on the man’s severe cheeks. His relief is palpable, and he immediately has to scoff at himself for thinking it possible.

Hannibal’s expression is blank, mostly. Difficult to read. But Will is nothing if not able to read Hannibal. And behind the blood and the mask, he sees frustration. Humiliation.

The fragility is a surprise, although perhaps it shouldn’t have been. Hannibal has seemed precarious for the entirety of their travels, like an overtired child. Will swallows again, flicking his tongue over his lips and furrowing his brows. Hannibal meets his gaze. There’s something so unexpectedly pathetic in his brown eyes, something that doesn’t make sense for the brutal predator.

And Will, faced with this strange, unfamiliar moment of vulnerability, feels a powerful urge to take advantage.

He closes the gap between them, licking his lips once more before pressing them to Hannibal’s. The reaction is immediate: his body stiffens and he grasps Will by the shoulders, haltingly attempting to pull Will closer. There is very little strength in the move. With the dominant and aggressive kissing of a few days prior still fresh in his mind, the lack of force strikes Will is peculiar.

An idea quickly takes shape, and in seconds, Will has devised a plan. An experiment. Something he would be unlikely to get away with were Hannibal acting himself. And it starts with following that attempt at an embrace.

Hannibal’s breath had caught when Will kissed him; he releases it now, shuddering and frail, as Will presses his body against him. Will drops the razor so he can snake his arm around Hannibal’s neck, twining his fingers into unwashed hair. He pushes on him, insistently but gently, backing him into the wall. Cornering him. Will cannot restrain his grin.

He tightens his grip on Hannibal’s hair, twisting his hand curiously. The way it pulls Hannibal’s head fascinates him, and he repeats the motion more strongly. Hannibal has done it to him so many times, and it is immediately clear that having the favour returned has startled him.

“Will...” Hannibal whispers. Will responds by kissing him again, pushing his tongue passed full lips. This tenderness is new, not something Hannibal has dabbled in recently. Especially not with Will. It’s not enough. He coils his arms around Will’s body, pulling him closer, clinging to him. It seems desperate to Will’s keen, calculating eye. Interesting.

Will keeps one hand in Hannibal’s hair, but the other is free to roam. His palm starts against Hannibal’s face, skimming gently over his jaw and rubbing the hollow of his cheek with his thumb. He presses his tongue further into Hannibal’s mouth and lets his hand glide down the curve of his neck, feeling the muscles work underneath.

If he were trying to be a satisfying partner, Will would have removed Hannibal’s shirt before moving further. But that is not his intention. He drags his hand down Hannibal’s chest over top of the fabric, pressing lightly into his soft pectoral, just above his nipple. At the same time, he breaks their kiss to catch Hannibal’s lower lip between his teeth. A tiny sound, somewhere between a gasp and a whimper, escapes Hannibal as Will bites down. It’s a gentle nip, not the sort to cause pain. Gentle, affectionate, and teasing. Taunting.Cruel.

Will releases him and eases back enough to look him in the eye. Blood is all over his mouth and cheeks; he can feel it growing tacky as it dries. He smiles ever so slightly and, without letting their eye contact waver, licks the blood from his lips.

Hannibal shudders. His vision has begun to betray him as tears cause it to blur. He blinks hard, not wanting to miss a moment of this beautiful display. Will is playing him like a fiddle, pushing the exact right buttons to send his composure crumbling down.

The flavour of blood isn’t great; its strong, metallic bite hits Will’s tongue like a solid wall and nearly makes him grimace. But it’s not about the taste. It’s about the look of impossible desire slipping its way passed Hannibal’s normallycontrolled features. It’s about taunting him, giving him what he wants without letting him enjoy it. And it’s working deliciously.

Will knows that Hannibal wants him to lick the blood from his face as well, then perhaps to share that flavour between them in another kiss. So, instead, he reaches up and wipes it away with his sleeve in an impossibly gentle gesture. Hannibal’s hands twitch against his back.

If Will were trying to be a satisfying partner, he would let his fingers slither down Hannibal’s body. He would undo the man’s belt, slide down the waistband of his pants, and sink to his knees. He would let his warm breath puff against Hannibal’s navel. He would tease and taunt and then follow through.

But that is not his intention.

He slides his palm slowly, rhythmically up and down Hannibal’s face, caressing him tenderly because he knows it will feel like torture. He lays the softest of feather light kisses against Hannibal’s lips and jaw because he knows it will frustrate him beyond reason. He grinds slowly, lightly against Hannibal’s waist because he can feel that it is driving him mad.

Hannibal is a man who knows what he wants, and Will knows it too.

It is a curious thing, to be attracted to danger. Hannibal had often found it an amusing trait in his patients, for the irony of it as much as anything else. It was what brought them to him, he suspected: a vague, unplaceable sense that beyond his affected, practiced charm, there was something powerful, something threatening. But it was usually a hypothetical attraction. If presented with a real, tangible danger, they would scatter in an instant.

That was a part of what made Will different. He did not scatter. Instead, the danger seemed to draw him closer, even when he resisted the pull.

Although some part of him had always suspected it, it was not until that moment that Hannibal understood just how alike that made them. Because this—this cruel, ceaseless, endless taunting—this is dangerous. It is dismantling him, reducing him to a pile of jelly, completely defenceless in Will’s hands. And yet, he cannot pull away.

It is like being spellbound, hypnotized. He could end it at any moment. He could snatch Will by the hair and yank him into a forceful, satisfying kiss. He could meet the delicate undulations of Will’s hips with a more forceful motion. Hell, he could bend him over the counter and fuck him, even. He could do anything to put an end to this torment and capture his satisfaction.

And yet, all he does is stay still and shiver. Because it is Will doing it. And he would allow Will to do anything.

Will senses the change in Hannibal when his realization hits him (he spots it in the hitch of Hannibal’s breath, in the stiffening of his posture, in the racing of his heart) and decides that must be enough. With a quick, sharp motion, he grabs Hannibal’s crotch through his pants and lightly squeezes. Hannibal gasps, the sound reedy and high in his throat. A shudder runs through his whole body and he digs his nails into Will’s back as he comes, hard. Will smirks.

And then he takes a step back, leaving Hannibal sagging against the wall.

Will doesn’t yet have a tangible explanation for much of what just happened. It will take him a little bit to sort through it all. And Hannibal, he suspects, will also need an opportunity to gather himself. So Will lets them both breathe.

He shuts off the stove and shifts the pot to a cool burner, letting the ingredients inside sizzle as they chill. Hannibal doesn’t protest, which Will expected. He doesn’t seem equipped to cook this evening.

He knows that Hannibal has not been himself, that he has been showing cracks in his armour. And that had made Will curious. Curious what exactly he could get away with, curious what Hannibal would let him do. In truth, he hadn’t expected Hannibal to let him get that far; he had fully thought that he would take charge in a matter of minutes. To his own annoyance, he had been hoping for that. Hannibal remaining docile and pliant under his hand is definitely fascinating, and undeniably satisfying. But Will would be lying to himself if he said he didn’t also love Hannibal as an unstoppable force of nature.

Be that as it may, he isn’t yet ready to relinquish the upper hand. He listens to the pace of Hannibal’s breaths, waiting for them to shift from something clipped and rapid to a far more controlled slowness.

“I thought this was what you wanted,” Will says, his voice quiet but firm.

Hannibal is already trying to reclaim his composure, but his breathlessness gives him away. “It is.” Will watches as Hannibal attempts to right his rumpled clothing and swipes a hand through his hair. It falls right back over the cut on his forehead. He will need to wash out the blood drying into it. “I have been waiting for this for years.”

It is obvious to them both that his composure is not returning to him. And, to Will’s surprise, Hannibal drops the pretence. His shoulders sag, his entire body radiating exhaustion and... something else. Something potent and overpowering. Will swallows, folding his arms over his chest.

“Then what the hell is your problem?” Will asks, trying not to get swept up in whatever Hannibal is exuding.

Hannibal hesitates, leaning back against the wall to catch his breath. It won’t return to him. “Will...” he sighs, shutting his eyes for a moment. He opens them again and looks over to Will, taking in the sight of him. Will is caught off guard by the sadness on his face and in his tiny, beleaguered smile. “I have been waiting for this... for you... for years. It has been all I can think of, the only thing that will hold my attentions. It has filled my every waking thought, and all of my dreams.” He sighs again, the motion seeming to carry through his entire body. “In some senses, it is difficult to know for certain that this is not all in my imagination.”

It is Will’s turn to shut his eyes as he is overwhelmed by the familiar sensation. He has to turn away for a moment to work through it. He is, of course, no stranger to losing track of where reality ends and imagination begins.

“Trust me,” Will says with a forced laugh, “It’s real. Plenty real.”

Hannibal doesn’t respond. When Will can bring himself to look at him again, he is met with a gaze of unadulterated adoration. It twists in his stomach and makes his heart jump in his chest, like the moment of sudden fear when the body realizes it’s falling. Sweat coats his palms.

“You are... exquisite...” Hannibal breathes, taking a step away from the wall and toward Will. “If I searched for the rest of my life, I would never find anyone as exquisite as you...”

Will cannot tear his eyes away, as much as he would like to. It is like they have been drawn in by a magnetic force too strong to overcome. The attraction between them is almost smothering.

“You are all I have ever wanted,” Hannibal whispers as he takes Will’s hand in his own and cradles it.

Will cannot say it out loud, but he knows it; he can feel its truth, its beautiful, hideous truth, all the way down in his core. He has eaten the pomegranate seeds, tasted the twisted glory of Hannibal. He can no longer live without him.

And that feels just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! This was mostly an experimental sort of thing, just playing around with a few concepts while I worked on developing a bigger idea. I hope you enjoyed it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! Writing for this fandom is some of the most fun I've had in a long time, and I'm looking forward to getting more stuff out there, especially the rest of this idea (which has been floating around in my head since I saw the finale). I hope you enjoyed it so far! (。-ω-)>c[_]
> 
>  [Oh yes, and in case you were wondering about the other four flowers...](http://www.vancouverflorist.com/flower-meaning.aspx)


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